I’m sitting at Rioja on a Monday night. A full book Monday night — rare for the best restaurants in the best of times, bordering on miraculous for this day and age, this city. I have one of the weird tables: a lonely deuce stuck between two four-tops, sitting, essentially,…
Eighty-two year-old JoAnn Turner, who bought the Rustic Tavern (5126 West 29th Avenue) with her husband 52 years ago and continues to oversee its daily operations, is showing me her photo albums. There’s so-and-so: His dog got hit by a car and we buried it out back. There’s Uncle Fred:…
I gave Rioja four years before going back (in a professional capacity) and finally finding the meal I’d always wanted to have there. Richard Sandoval opened Tamayo, his “modern Mexican” restaurant, at the corner of Larimer and 14th streets in 2001. My predecessor, Kyle Wagner, reviewed it that same year…
The sandwich: Hawaiian Express What’s on it: Ham, pineapple ring, cheddar, lettuce, tomato and mayo on choice of bread Where to get it: Katherine’s French Bakery, Café and Catering (728 South University Boulevard, 303-282-5888) How much: $7.95 If you don’t do it Hawaiian style, you’ve never done it Hawaiian style,…
All you civilians are going to have to wait until Monday, June 15, to witness the unveiling of the state’s newest Whole Foods Market, the nineteenth in the Rocky Mountain region, and one of the first tenants in a wave of retailers, bars and restaurants that’s setting up digs in…
Maggiano’s Little Italy introduced an amazing deal today. From now through July 8, if you dine at a Maggiano’s — and there are two in Denver, one in the Pavilions and one in the Tech Center — and order a chef’s $12.95 speciality dish, you’ll get your next night’s dinner…
Although I dedicated nearly 2000 words to Rioja in my review this week (and an additional grand to Larimer Square, where Rioja is located, plus a few more hundred to a blog teasing my review of Rioja), I forgot to use any of those words to mention my favorite thing…
The Bonnie Brae Tavern turned 75 on Sunday, and celebrated by serving 75 cent beers and plates of spaghetti for $1.75. “It was crazy in here,” says Michael Dire, who co-manages the place with his cousin, Rick. Michael and Rick are the third generation of Dires to work at the…
It’s already got four bars, a full menu, big crowds and, in my opinion, the best Guinness pour in the city. It has a prime location (at 1550 Court Place) for foot traffic, a big patio and an entire hotel’s worth of captive customers. So what else could Katie Mullen’s…
A reader recently e-mailed me a good question: Whether the Chinook Tavern — which left its longtime home at 265 Detroit Street last June, in hopes of reopening at the Landmark last fall — was ever going to reappear.That e-mail got me thinking, because it seems like, well, forever since…
Twins Will and Dave Elger, who were born in Mexico but are very much Denverites, worked in the tequila business for a decade before creating their own five years ago: Muchote Tequila. Nancy Levine first caught up with it last September at Lime XS, where she discovered it made a…
Just got off the phone with Anthony, who couldn’t have been any more polite — or any less forthcoming — about the story behind Simms Landing, the iconic Lakewood restaurant at 11911 West Sixth Avenue, a perch from which it has overlooked downtown Denver for more than thirty years, moving…
Real food. Sharp utensils. Big fire. A good cause. And Denver’s top chefs. That’s what’s on tap tonight, from 6 to 9 p.m., at Elway’s Cherry Creek, 2500 East First Avenue, when eleven of the town’s top cookers – Tyler Wiard (Elway’s, Cherry Creek); Sean Yontz (Mezcal, Tambien and Sketch);…
Kurobuta pork belly, seared on the surface, rubbed with cardamom, properly rested so that it isn’t wet with fat, and mounted atop a chunky mound of curry-spiced garbanzo bean puree, green like smashed peas, smooth as whipped potatoes. It’s a singularly delicious plate — the best of a whole, long…
The Beer Clothing Company, the Central City firm that graced the world with its (patent-pending) Beer Buckle, has landed a contract with Boston Beer (the maker of Sam Adams) to manufacture Beer Buckles branded with the Twisted Tea logo. The Beer Buckle is a genius creation: a belt buckle that…
Westword’s last office was across the street from the Wynkoop Brewing Company at 1634 Wynkoop Street — and in the early days of that brewpub, our staffers drank a lot of beers (and other things) there. “Westword kept us in business for two years,” former brewmeister/now mayor John Hickenlooper recalled…
Gomez, the Mexican pit stop at 3600 Park Avenue West, just off 38th Avenue and I-25, is beating the recession big time with all-day, every day 99 cent specials on the joint’s housemade pork-studded tamales and its egg, potato and cheese or bean and cheese burrito. If you want your…
For two hours last Friday, I was happy, happy, happy. The reason for my happiness? Vesta Dipping Grill, more specifically, the happy hour at Vesta Dipping Grill (1822 Blake Street), which runs Monday through Friday, from 5 to 6:30 p.m., and may very well be the happiest deal in Denver,…
Falling Rock Taphouse, Westword’s Best Beer List winner three years in a row, celebrates its twelfth anniversary tonight with a party starting at 6 p.m. Enjoy free barbeque while it lasts, and try a couple pints of beer from Elysian Brewing, a Seattle-area brewery that is entering the Colorado market…
Denver’s entry on The Bachelorette, “pizza entrepreneur” Mark Huebner, survived round three of the show last night. But while he’s wooing bachelorette Jillian — in TV time, at least — work continues at Huebner’s Denver Pizza Company, with the windows at 309 West 11th Avenue filled with city permits and…
From the hillside overlooking downtown, La Loma has been slinging green chile for close to four decades. It’s the recipe created by grandma Savina Mendoza, whose chile became so popular that the two families that opened La Loma in an old bungalow back in 1974 soon had saved enough money…
There’s plenty of action in the 2000 block of Larimer Street these days. The Gin Mill is finishing up the Barn Out Back, its backyard patio; the Three Door Bistro is looking at a July debut; and across the street at 2046 Larimer, Zanzibar Billiards Bar & Grill is getting…
