Greater Grand Junction, CO: Cost of Living Diaries

A local shares what it’s like to live in this lively and rapidly growing Colorado region.

By Rebecca Treon on January 9, 2024

Cat Meyer Photography

People from around the country are discovering the perks of living in Greater Grand Junction, CO, as it offers new business and educational opportunities with a backdrop of Colorado’s great outdoors. The region boasts many community events, independent restaurants and outdoor recreation, with plenty of activities for people of all ages and interests.

Josh Niernberg grew up in the Denver area, where he worked at some of the city’s most trendy and cutting-edge restaurants starting in the late 1990s. He is the chef/owner of Bin 707 Foodbar and Tacoparty, two of the area’s top eateries. A Grand Junction resident, Niernberg shares what he loves about his hometown.

What brought you to Grand Junction? 

My wife’s family is from here and still lives here. We came here with a plan to stay for two years in 2007 and just never left.

How would you describe the Grand Junction area to someone coming for the first time?  

Grand Junction has amazing access to great outdoors and all the good things that Colorado has to offer while still feeling like a very small town in the best possible way. One of the unique things here is that Grand Junction is really Grand Junction, Palisade, Clifton and Fruita. It’s a combination of those four municipalities, which are basically three towns, and each one of them has their own version of things, which means that every weekend there are three farmers markets and there are three different sets of activities happening, which is always really fun to kind of decide where you want to go and do.

The Market on Main on Thursday nights in downtown Grand Junction is the first one that I always go to. It kind of acts like a farmers market, but it’s more of an artisan market because it’s at night and not during the day, so that’s always a good one. And then there are different kinds of festivals and races throughout the year, like the Rides and Vibes Music Festival, a mountain bike and music event, which starts and ends downtown and rides up to the Lunch Loop trailhead area for a mountain bike race. They put a big stage in and bring in artists and have concerts at night all week long. That’s my favorite event of the year. 

What are housing prices like in Grand Junction?

That price has gone up fairly significantly in the last five years for a two-to three-bedroom house within city limits. (Zillow put the average home value in Grand Junction at $385,000 in August 2023, about two-thirds of the median in Denver.) As for rent, just for the sake of argument, we could say it’s about half of what the price is in Denver for a rental unit. We still own our house in Denver, and we have a rental here, too, and we are charging about half here for a similar-sized house in Denver. Hopefully there will be a little bit of a rent adjustment soon, because there hasn’t been a lot of vacancy due to pressure on the infrastructure, but there is a lot of new construction projects, like apartments and such, that will be market rate housing and will hopefully create a little bit more of an equilibrium and open up some options.

What is your favorite restaurant and what does dinner for two cost?

It’s so hard to pick one! Hot Tomato Pizza in Fruita has always been a favorite. A large pizza is in the high $20 range. Peche in Palisade is a great special occasion place — it’s probably in the ballpark of $120 per person, if not more. Those would be some of the highlights past our little hole-in-the-wall places.

What’s your go-to coffee shop, and what is your typical order? 

I like Kiln Coffee Bar, which is on Main Street between Third and Fourth streets in downtown Grand Junction. I’m an Americano drinker, and they have really, really good coffee – the coffee quality really shines. It’s about $3.