Lyon's Corner Drug Stayed Open for Two Years Behind a Storefront That Looked Closed

For most of the last two years, the corner of 9th and Lincoln looked like a building waiting to be saved. Supports braced the brick face of the Maxwell-Squire Building. The sidewalk out front was closed. The front entrance, where generations of Steamboat kids walked in for a malt, was off limits.

Behind all of that, Lyon's Corner Drug was open. After a vehicle hit the front of the building in January 2025, the store closed for six days. Since then it has been filling prescriptions, selling gifts and scooping ice cream at 840 Lincoln Ave. every week.

The repairs are now finished. According to the Steamboat Pilot & Today, all final inspections are complete and the building permit has been closed. The owners have set a grand reopening for Saturday, Dec. 5. The word "reopening" is a little misleading for a business that never left. What returns that day is the building that made people forget it was open.

What the crash actually did to the corner

The damage went deeper than a broken storefront. As the Pilot reported in April 2026, the impact pushed the load-bearing bricks back more than a foot. The building's owner had to add pillars and other supports to keep it standing, and crews dug down through the store's floor to set more pillars under the second story.

Those pillars went behind a temporary interior wall. That wall shrank the retail floor and took out the seating customers used at the Soda Fountain. So for most of the repair period, the store's best-known feature had nowhere to sit.

The owners also changed how the store ran inside. Amanda and Joshua Jones took over the business from Matt and Kelli Johnson in January 2024. After the crash they built a wall separating the pharmacy from the rest of the store, so the front could stay open when the pharmacist was off. The pharmacy kept shorter weekend hours, and the gift shop and fountain stayed open seven days a week.

The cost shows up in the fountain. In April 2026, Amanda Jones told the Pilot that soda fountain business was down 50% from the same point a year earlier. In the Pilot's November story she described sales during construction as "dismal." She said the building looking closed was one cause, along with the wider economy and a slow winter for tourism.

Why a storefront repair took nearly two years

The business doesn't own the building, and that explains most of the wait. The Maxwell-Squire Building belongs to Victor Balestra. He and Historic Routt County have worked on the rehabilitation since January 2025. The Joneses run the pharmacy and fountain inside and had little control over the repair schedule.

Restoring a century-old historic building added several steps to the schedule.

1. Funding. Historic Routt County won $250,000 from the History Colorado State Historical Fund toward the restoration, and the building's insurer had to approve the repairs.
2. The right tradesperson. The building owner had to find and hire a historic mason.
3. Full restoration. An Oct. 29 statement from Historic Routt County listed the work as structural repairs, masonry and storefront restoration, window repairs and interior finish work.
4. A full project team. Balestra credited Hewitt Design Studio, JVA Consulting Engineers, Mountain Architecture Design Group P.C., Deep Roots Craftsmen and Historic Routt County.

The building also gained official standing along the way. The Maxwell-Squire Building went up in 1908, and the city added it to the Steamboat Springs Register of Historic Places in July 2026. The project has also been approved for Colorado's Commercial Historic Preservation tax credit.

With all that going on, it's easy to see how a rumor started. In April, Amanda Jones told the Pilot that some people believed she and her husband had received the grant and the insurance money and were sitting on it. In fact the grant went to Historic Routt County and the repairs were the building owner's to manage. She also called Balestra "great to work with" and said he was trying to leave the building better than he found it.

What changes now that you can see inside

The biggest change is what you see from the sidewalk. Jones told the Steamboat Pilot & Today that now the work is done, people walking by can see all the way into the store again. That first week, people kept telling her, "I haven't been in for so long."

"We feel like from this point forward, we can actually see what we're capable of doing now that we have our full space and it's shoppable."

That's Jones in the Pilot's Nov. 5 story. She added that 2024 went to staffing, wholesalers and contracts, 2025 was meant to be the year their plans came together, and the crash arrived 21 days in. "So now, 2027 is the year," she said.

What's inside is the same store. Lyon's still sells boutique items, stationery, gifts and souvenirs alongside its pharmacy and classic soda fountain. It won Best of the Boat for pharmacy again this year, and it has won that category several times before. The store's website currently lists separate hours for each part of the store:

If you remember the fountain from before the crash, the Pilot's 2019 description of the menu included grilled cheese, egg salad and tuna salad sandwiches, plus ice cream, shakes and malts. The store's site also links to online ordering.

The locals' discount still applies. Local residents get a "kiddie-sized" cone for $1, and visitors pay full price. Jones also acknowledged one thing the repairs didn't change. "I know our parking is challenging," she told the Pilot, "but it's worth stopping in, having your scripts filled and getting your ice cream."

A corner with more than a century of drugstore history

The restored storefront is the newest chapter in a long run at that address. The Pilot reports that the building has housed a pharmacy since 1924 and that Lyon's Drug officially opened in 1943. That's more than eight decades under the Lyon's name at the same corner of Lincoln Avenue.

Jones told the Pilot that the community still sees the store as a staple, but "that means that we have to have customers and patients in the door to continue to be that staple."

Planning Saturday, Dec. 5

The grand reopening runs during regular store hours, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. A few downtown events fall around it, and one is a block away the same morning:

• Friday, Nov. 27: Light Up the Night moves to its new location at Civic Plaza by City Hall on 10th Street, 6 to 6:30 p.m. Expect cocoa, cookies, a countdown to the lights, Santa, and the fire department's ping-pong ball drop with specials printed on the balls.
• Saturday, Nov. 28: Small Business Saturday at downtown's local shops.
• Saturday, Dec. 5: Lyon's opens at 9 a.m. Santa Visits in His Study runs from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Civic Plaza, also in its new location by City Hall. The fountain opens at 11, so a morning visit to Santa can end with a cone at 9th and Lincoln.
• Later Saturdays: Santa returns to Civic Plaza on Dec. 12 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and on Dec. 19 from 10 a.m. to noon.

If you need a prescription filled that day, the pharmacy keeps its Saturday hours and closes at 2 p.m.

I've watched this corner change over many years in Steamboat, and the restored Maxwell-Squire Building is one of the better outcomes downtown has seen. If you have questions about historic commercial buildings on Lincoln Avenue, or about owning anything near downtown, Kelly Conway is glad to talk it through, ideally over a kiddie cone at the fountain. Let's Connect.