New in Douglas County: Free Rides Across Castle Rock Start Friday, and the Stumpy's Countdown Gets Shorter

Edition four, with the most immediately useful item this tracker has run: free door-to-door rides across Castle Rock starting Friday. Also: a Detroit-style pizza arrival, a shortened countdown for a 26-year institution, Korean salads in August, and the weekly honest accounting of what still has not opened. Tip line, as always, on the About page.

The big one: free rides across Castle Rock start Friday

Link On Demand, the county's subsidized rideshare, goes live in Castle Rock on Friday morning: eight vehicles, two wheelchair-accessible, free to ride, covering the whole town Monday through Thursday 7 to 7, Friday 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Saturday 10 to 10. The county put roughly $1.9 million into the expansion and Castle Rock added $400,000. Free, town-wide, on-demand transit is the kind of thing residents assume their town does not have; as of Friday, this one does. Fairgoers, note the Friday and Saturday night hours and connect the dots.

Open: Jet's Pizza, Castle Rock

The Detroit-style chain opened July 17 at Founders Parkway and Front Street, in the old Papa Murphy's space. Castle Rock's pizza scene keeps getting corners: square ones, in this case. Westword's July 25 roll call also lists a new "Angry Pizza" at Park Meadows Center Drive in Lone Tree, which we have not been able to independently confirm yet; if you have been, tell us what it is.

The Stumpy's countdown just got shorter

An update on the story nobody wanted from edition one: Rivers Church's purchase of the strip mall at 138 S. Wilcox is moving, and recent coverage indicates Stumpy's Pizza's lease now runs only through the end of August, far sooner than the 2027 timeline originally floated. The owners, 26 years in Castle Rock, are actively hunting a new location. If August is really the last month for the current room, this is the moment to go, and if you own a vacant restaurant space in Castle Rock, this is the moment to make a call.

Coming: Salady, Parker

South Korea's largest salad franchise, 300-plus stores, is targeting August at Parker Gateway Marketplace on South Parker Road: salads, warm grain bowls, and wraps, in the chain's second Colorado location after Westminster. When we first mentioned it, the sourcing was thin; it has since firmed up. August in Parker is getting crowded, which brings us to the scoreboard.

The still-waiting list, kept honest

• JP Cocina & Cantina (the old Wild Goose, Parker): still just a sign. No permits, owner, or menu have surfaced, and Parker's liquor-license process runs 60 to 90 days minimum with a public hearing, which makes a fall opening the realistic window if paperwork is only now moving.
• Cask & Trotter (Parker): still "August," still no date, though the LLC paperwork is on file and the concept, a rotating seasonal menu from the Wolf Peach team, remains the one Parker asks us about most.
• Journeys and Peak Pizza (Outlets at Castle Rock): "summer 2026" for the fourth straight edition. Summer ends in eight weeks; the clock is audible.
• The Hideaway (Castle Rock): still dark after the May fires, no rebuild timeline.
• Toastique (Highlands Ranch): still no official word, and the plot thickened: the franchise's Overland Park, Kansas location also closed in late July, which suggests the turbulence is bigger than one storefront. Every platform lists the HR shop closed; corporate's page still does not. We will keep saying "unconfirmed" until someone says it out loud.

On the radar, unconfirmed

Names appearing in coming-soon windows and filings around Parker's Mainstreet that we are still running down: a fourth Cerebral Brewing taproom, a mead hall, a Vietnamese coffee and charcuterie shop, and a bourbon bar. If even half of those land, Mainstreet's next twelve months are going to be busy, and so is this tracker. Know something firsthand? The tip line is open.

That is edition four. Every week: what opened, what closed, what is coming, verified. See something we missed? Tell us, and we will run it down.