DougCo News
Openings, closings, and what's changing across Douglas County.
Douglas County Is Asking the State Supreme Court to Overturn Its Open-Meetings Defeat
An appeals court found the commissioners held 11 secret meetings while pushing a home-rule power grab voters later rejected 71 percent. Now the county wants the Colorado Supreme Court to say it did nothing wrong.
Douglas County's 2026 Primary: What to Watch Tuesday Night, and Where to Follow Results
Polls close 7 p.m. Tuesday. Weiser is leading Bennet, a MAGA outsider is winning the GOP governor primary, and two local races decide Douglas County. Our read on the odds, the money, and where to watch live.
Douglas County Reinstated Stage 1 Fire Restrictions Today. No Backyard Fireworks for the Fourth.
Effective June 29, open burning and personal fireworks are banned across unincorporated Douglas County, Castle Pines, and Larkspur. The pro shows in Castle Rock, Parker, and Lone Tree are still on.
Greg Lopez found the Colorado GOP's clearest path back to the governor's office. The party won't take it.
A former Parker mayor and Republican congressman left his party to run for governor as an independent. The strategy has nearly worked for outsiders in other states. In Colorado it would require the GOP to do the one thing it has refused to do: get out of its own way.
Hartsook vs. Davis: the Douglas County House race nobody saw coming
House District 44 was supposed to be a coronation. Then a 31-year cop got nominated from the floor, and now he is outspending the incumbent House leader nearly nine to one heading into June 30.
Fourth of July 2026 in Douglas County: every fireworks show, and the one big town that canceled
Highlands Ranch canceled its fireworks and Parker dropped its daytime festival, so the 2026 map looks different. Here is every town's celebration, the fireworks times, and the best spots to watch.
Your complete 2026 Douglas County ballot: every race from governor to commissioner
Governor, U.S. Senate, Congress, the statehouse, and the county: every race a Douglas County voter will see in 2026, plus the June 30 primaries that quietly decide most of them.
Diak, Bockenfeld, Bonham: inside the one Douglas County commissioner race actually up for grabs in 2026
Abe Laydon is term-limited, the District 1 seat is open for the first time in eight years, and the June 30 Republican primary will probably decide it, unless a county that's quietly gone purple has other ideas.
Nine months in: how The Sportsbook Bar & Grill changed the Mainstreet Parker sports-bar math.
A follow-up to last year's opening. The big LED wall, the never-frozen burgers, the kitchen that runs to midnight on weekends, and the gap on Mainstreet it actually filled.
The Castle Rock Summer Concert Series turns 10: the full 2026 lineup, prices, and the free series people forget exists.
Five ticketed national acts from June 26 to August 29 at the Philip S. Miller Park Amphitheater, plus a separate free Thursday series the regulars actually plan around. Tickets are already on sale.
The Larkspur Renaissance Festival opens June 6. Here's what's new for 2026 and how to actually do the day right.
Eight weekends, 14 stages, two new acts, and a parking situation that punishes anyone who arrives after 10am. The 2026 Colorado Renaissance Festival, planned the way the regulars do it.
Memorial Day weekend in DougCo: where to grill, where to drink, and the three trailheads to skip.
May 23-25 is the season opener for Douglas County summer, and the locals already know which patios will fill at noon and which trailheads will turn into traffic jams. The plan, by use case.
The Sportsbook Bar & Grill is open at 18951 Mainstreet in Parker. Mainstreet's sports-bar gap is now closed.
The Colorado-rooted sports bar chain (LoDo, Highlands Ranch, Colorado Springs) opened its Parker location in mid-August 2025 at 18951 Mainstreet, Unit C. Late-night kitchen, a late-2am close most nights, and a bar that fills on Broncos Sundays.
Douglas County summer 2026 preview: Trace Adkins at the rodeo, Jackson Dean at Philip S. Miller, Parker doubling down on August.
Three months, four major events, and a town-by-town concert calendar that makes 2026 the busiest summer DougCo has had. The schedule worth saving to your phone now.
Cinco de Mayo lands on Taco Tuesday this year. Here's where DougCo locals are going.
May 5 is a Tuesday in 2026, which makes it one of the easiest Cinco de Mayos to actually plan around. The four restaurants below are the ones we'd send you to, ranked by what they do best on a high-volume Mexican holiday.
Five months in: what the Crystal Valley Parkway bridge actually changed. And what it hasn't.
The new bridge over I-25 opened to east-west traffic on November 22, 2025. Five months later, the realigned West Frontage Road (now Dawson Trails Boulevard) is moving traffic and the new roundabouts are functioning. The on- and off-ramps to I-25 are still 18 months out. Here's what the data says about the in-between.
Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar is coming to Castle Rock Promenade. The HR location's success is the bet.
The California chain that runs the Highlands Ranch lodge-themed dog patio is building a Castle Rock location at 5949 Alpine Vista Circle in the Promenade development. Opening date not yet confirmed for 2026. The Castle Rock Promenade restaurant cluster keeps growing.
Ovest Via has been open at the Parker Hotel for 16 months. It is now the chef-driven Italian Parker did not have.
Pam Briere's Italian concept opened January 7, 2025. Hand-pulled pasta, wood-fired pizza, a short-rib ravioli that locals have started ordering by name. Sixteen months in, Ovest Via has graduated from "new restaurant" to "the answer when somebody asks where to eat in Parker."
Starbird Chicken opens at the Castle Rock Promenade. The Mexican-restaurant block just got a chicken concept three doors down.
The premium fast-casual chicken chain opened its second Colorado location at 6360 Promenade Parkway on Monday, April 27. It sits in the same block as Savina's Mexican Kitchen and Los Dos Potrillos Castle Rock, and signals what this stretch of Promenade is becoming: a five-storefront restaurant cluster on the south side of town.
Castle Rock just cleared the way for 1,000 more Dawson Trails homes before the interchange opens. Here's what that actually means.
The Crystal Valley Parkway bridge is already open. The interchange ramps and the Costco both land in 2027. And on January 20, the Town Council quietly tripled the number of homes that can go up before any of it opens for business. It is the first decision in this project that meaningfully changes what Castle Rock looks like in 2026.