Social Sightings: Help Save Oblio’s, Annette Cuts Brunch and More

Monday mornings are tough, but this series isn’t. Social Sightings is your quick look at interesting food tidbits that we’ve spotted recently. It goes down as easy as your first cup of coffee, and should whet your appetite for the week ahead.

Park Hill pizzeria Oblio’s at 6115 East 22nd Avenue has been open since 1996, but the pandemic has hit the business hard. Dine-in business is down, and the list of repairs that need to be made keeps growing. Oblio’s is owned by Dawn Mckay and her daughter, Morgan, who grew up in the business. Her parents started the restaurant when she was ten years old; in 2004, they divorced and sold Oblio’s to a Park Hill resident, but in August 2016, Morgan and Dawn were able to buy it back, taking out a second mortgage to do so. Now Morgan, who is a single mother, has set up a GoFundMe to save the spot: “From the bottom of my heart, with tears running down my cheeks, I beg of you to help save my dream,” she says. The goal: $50,000 to help the business get through winter.
Make a donation: GoFundMe

Chef/owner Caroline Glover — who has been vocal on social media about the challenges the pandemic has caused in the hospitality industry — has made the call to cut brunch service at Annette, her restaurant at the Stanley Marketplace. “With the labor shortage in our industry right now, Nelson [her husband] and I simply can’t find the staff to run brunch without us,” she writes on Instagram. “Instead, it feels like brunch is running our lives … After nearly two years of running a restaurant in a pandemic, we are exhausted and this cadence is simply not sustainable.” So brunch service will not return after the restaurant’s winter break from January 1-19, and a dinner service will be added. Stop by in December for a last taste of pork hash and sourdough waffles.
Instagram: @annette_scratchtotable

Through early January, catch chef Brian Lockwood’s fall residency at Basta, 3601 Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder. Lockwood was formerly the chef de cuisine at Eleven Madison Park and NoMad in New York City, and has worked at Frasca Food and Wine, the French Laundry and more. Tickets start at $95 for the five-course prix fixe Israeli dinner, and proceeds benefit Sophie’s Neighborhood, a nonproft started by Blackbelly and Santo chef/owner Hosea Rosenberg and his wife, Lauren Feder, to research the rare disease with which their daughter, Sophie, was diagnosed in 2020. Lockwood, whose wife is Israeli, has been traveling to that country for fifteen years and has created a menu that includes dishes like white truffle gnocchi with Jerusalem artichoke and whole roasted turbot for two. Reservations are available from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
Make a reservation: Book on Tock

As a thank you to its guests, the Big Red F restaurant group (Jax Fish House, the Post Chicken & Beer, West End Tavern and Centro Mexican Kitchen) is giving away a trip to New Orleans. “You’ll sit under 100-year-old oak trees and listen to soulful music at Bacchanal. Eat absolutely incredible food at Paladar 511, Nagomi, Elizabeth’s, The Franklin, Mimi’s, Satsuma, Alma and Bywater American Bistro, dance all night to live music at Bud Rip’s, Saturn Bar, BJ’s, Vaughan’s, Markey’s and The Domino, and then wake up and have a hilarious drag brunch at The Country Club. And that’s just the Bywater on a Thursday,” owner Dave Query writes in an email announcing the giveaway. The winner will be chosen on January 1, 2022, and must travel in June, July or August 2022. 
Enter to win: bigredf.com

The list of restaurants and bars that have opted to require proof of vaccine instead of masks keeps growing and now includes another one of Denver’s big restaurant groups, Culinary Creative, which owns A5 Steakhouse, Ash’Kara, Bar Dough, Forget Me Not, Mister Oso, Señor Bear and Tap & Burger. It joins Bonanno Concepts, which was the first group to implement a proof-of-vaccine policy in September, and others.
Read the full list