The Rackhouse Pub to open in former Heavenly Daze

Denver will get a new tap house later this summer when Eric Warner opens the Rackhouse Pub in the building recently purchased by Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey. Warner, the former head of Flying Dog Brewery (which moved from Denver to Maryland in 2008), says the place will have fifty beer handles…

Out of the sea and into the claws of Jax Fish House

Here’s some good news for all you East Coasters homesick for a bona fide crab boil: Beginning this week, Jax Fish House, the Denver restaurant shrine to all things aquatic at 1539 17th Street, is throwing crab boils on its patio for groups of four or more. The boils, priced…

Guess where I’m eating?

If you took all the foods I loved the most and compiled them on a plate, this is what that plate would look like…before I licked it clean. If you can’t figure out where this lovely example of a charcuterie platter resides, click around Cafe Society for clues and post…

Chris Cina seen in Black Hawk

Chris Cina’s had some bad luck lately, with his last gig at Twig’s Wine Bar and Pickles Deli in Tipsy’s, a gigantic liquor store in Littleton, drying up fast last fall. And that was after an absolutely disastrous attempt to open T. Kelly’s at 1361 Court Place. Still, Cina’s got…

Milking It: Cinna-Graham Honey-Comb

Cinna-Graham Honey-Comb Post Rating: Three spoons out of four Cereal description: The ingredients for these these thick, hefty, seven-holed wheels include corn flour, oat flour, assorted vitamins, caramel coloring that makes the bits a tad darker than original recipe Honey-Comb, and not much more. It’s one of the shorter rosters…

Where am I drinking?

While some people are enjoying the great outdoors this weekend, others of us are enjoying the greatest of the indoors: dark, dissolute bars. Where am I drinking?…

The List: Nothin’ but meat

This past week I reviewed Sketch–a restaurant that serves almost nothing but meat.  And a little cheese.  And a few scattered, random plates of olives, cherries, bits of this, pieces of that. I liked the place for its simplicity, for the plain way that it offers some of the best…

The Hornet puts its hive on hiatus until July 9

Just after midnight on Thursday, July 2, The Hornet, 76 Broadway, posted the sign seen above on its windows and doors. But unlike Lucy, the upscale restaurant in Comedy Works South that’s “closed for maintenance” — and may or may not reopen by the end of the month — The…

Cafe Society: Week in review

We’re out early for the Fourth of July weekend, but check below to make sure you didn’t miss any of the good stuff this week.  Enjoy your sparklers.Floods and fire temporarily shutter two local barbecue joints.Where to find the best cart lunch?  Readers weigh in.Restaurant roll call for June: opened…

More on Ondo’s, coming this fall

This is me jumping up and down in excitement.  This is me rubbing my hands with glee. Yeah, sure, 250 Steele Street has a serious curse on it. Like a Curse of the Mummy-style curse. Abandon hope all ye who open a restaurant here. This space has swallowed more restaurants…

Charity vs. rugby team in eating contest. Who ya got?

Who do you think can eat more hot dogs in a short period of time: the chefs and volunteers from Project Angel Heart, which feeds over 800 meals to sick and housebound patients every day, or the Glendale Raptors rugby team? Project Angel Heart Executive Chef Jon Emanuel wasn’t too…

Where am I eating?

Two lobsters — fried, steamed, slicked with sauce or stomped with jalapenos, spring onions and garlic — for $19.99. A damn good two-for-one deal if you can find it…XO, Lori…

Ondo’s to move into French 250

Never say die: The space at 250 Steele Street that swallowed French 250 (and numerous restaurants before that) is now moving around the Mediterranean. According to the banner now hanging at that address, Ondo’s, a tapas spot, will attempt to make a go of this spot come fall…

Lucy at the Landmark takes a leave of absence

Lucy, the tony restaurant that takes up the second floor of Comedy Works South, 5345 Landmark Place, is shuttered for what the website calls “maintenance.” Well, sort of. I just got off the phone with Susan Collyar, marketing manager for Comedy Works, who told me that the restaurant is being…

Candy Girls: Chick-O-Stick

The main thing that weirds people out about Chick-O-Stick is the name.  It seems the inclusion of “chick” in there, coupled with the image of a chicken that appears on the original packaging, makes people assume the candy is some sort of unholy chicken mash-up, similar to Chickin in a…

The last food court on 16th Street

After stopping by the Tabor Center to stare at what had been the third-floor food court, I headed down the 16th Street Mall to visit the last surviving food court: Republic Plaza. “At last,” I thought, when I saw the neon and smelled the grease as I neared Court Pl…

Ruff. Ruff. Ruff: Best doggone restaurant, bar and cafe patios for Fido

The dog days of summer are here, and barking all about that is dogmatches.com, a Boulder-based website that’s currently holding a Best Doggone Restaurant Competition to determine which restaurants, bars and java joints in Denver and Boulder are Fido-friendly. You can cast your vote on things like: Which restaurant has…

Denver Pizza Company opens July 3

Mark Huebner didn’t get the girl — he was eliminated from The Bachelorette two weeks ago — but he got a pizza joint instead. His Denver Pizza Company, at 309 West 11th Avenue, opens tomorrow at 11 a.m.; it will be selling medium pies for $5 (one topping) and large…

Get fired up for a hot weekend of food and wine events

From 5 – 10 p.m., Friday, July 3, the Infinite Monkey Theorem Urban Winery, 931 West Fifth Avenue, is participating in the Golden Triangle’s First Friday Art Walk by hosting “Art Under the Influence,” a grape stomp in the courtyard that includes wines by the glass, great grub from Masterpiece…

Jason Sheehan is ready to face his critics

I did my first few turns through Sketch while working as an anonymous restaurant critic. Not anonymous to Jesse Morreale or Sean Yontz, necessarily. Not to Charlie Master who works their bar, or to some of the staff to whom I’d been introduced. But generally speaking, I was still a…

Sketch has a simple premise that leaves no room for mistakes

Almost everyone at Sketch Food and Wine knows me. The above-the-line guys for certain, some of the bartenders. I have acted well and poorly in their establishment, used it for celebrations and decompressions numerous times since it opened in March. And I have experienced the all-too-classic result of blown critical…

Ginger Gimlet at LoHi SteakBar

The minute LoHi SteakBar opened its doors in the transformed North Star Brewery space last week, I was there to try a few of the cocktails that bar manager Dan Guaydacan has concocted. And no sooner had I sat down than Joe Vostrejs, the COO of Larimer Associates who’s behind…