Creating a financially successful tavern isn’t tough. Aside from a ham-and-cheese-sandwich joint that gives away free booze and hand jobs, no restaurant venture offers a better rate of return than your average tavern, and unless you’re a congenitally bad businessman, you should have some cash in the register at the…
Many years ago, I drank many margaritas at Juanita’s. So when noted restaurateur Frank Bonanno returned this corner space on 17th Avenue to its Mexican roots, transforming the old Rhino Room into Milagro Taco Bar, it seemed like my formative years had been miraculously resurrected. And what I found at…
It had been a long week, and by Friday, several members of the Institute of Drinking Studies were looking forward to what would prove a cataclysmic night in the Vortex. As if reading our collective mood, Mother Nature had crowded the western skies with ominous thunderheads by the time JP…
If restaurateur, chef and culinary man-about-town Dave Query has a signature spot that captures the evolution of his empire, that would be the Jax in LoDo. Here, in a retooling of the Boulder original, Query’s vision and his attempts to meld the upscale with the downhome come together most smoothly…
Every spring, Chinook Tavern celebrates white-asparagus season as long as the season lasts, getting only the best product overnighted from producers in Holland, Germany and France, using it in only the best ways. For ten years Chinook has been doing this, and just a whiff of the house’s special white-asparagus…
If seeing the special Spargelfeier menu got me excited about grabbing a table at Chinook Tavern (see review), then hearing Clemens Georg talk about it made me realize I had to grab that table now. “Do you know about white asparagus?” he asked. Yes, I know plenty about white asparagus…
It had been a while since I’d last been dragged to a karaoke bar. It had been such a long while, in fact, that back then, I couldn’t even pass the excruciating time with a game that not-so-new trends now make possible. On a recent visit to Armida’s, for instance,…
Before we went to see the latest Star Wars installment last Sunday, we held our own geek convention at Benny’s Restaurant (301 East Seventh Avenue). For those unfortunate people forced to overhear our conversation, which degenerated into fisticuffs every two seconds, there’s probably little doubt that most of us played…
New and improved. I can’t imagine those two words ever being more appropriate — in a restaurant context, certainly — than when applied to Cafe Berlin in its new home downtown. Cafe Berlin’s original location on 17th Avenue, although quaintly charming and homey in a care-worn way, was definitely showing…
The first time I tried Star of India — two years ago, during one of my warm-weather Indian binges — I immediately put the meal out of my mind. The food wasn’t just spicy, it was punishing. Brutal. The heat was so overwhelming that it fried the synapses in my…
I don’t know what it is. Maybe the warm weather. Maybe the economy. Maybe the fact that it’s pretty easy to impersonate a guy who works anonymously. But in the past few weeks, there’s been yet another rash of Jason Sheehan imposters acting naughty in my name. First came reports…
Which Colorado establishment sells the most Bacardi rum? I wouldn’t have guessed Samba Room, but when Tim Maness, executive chef and managing partner, told me that this Larimer Square establishment serves between 1,100 and 1,600 mojitos each week, the answer made sense. The bar also goes through ten pounds –…
The Institute of Drinking Studies would like to congratulate Westword on the best cover we’ve seen since we started dragging down the collective IQ of Denver. We’re referring, of course, to the May 19 issue featuring the backside of (we sure as hell hope) a young lady. This visual appealed…
Just staying open for over thirty years is an achievement for any restaurant. But staying open and staying relevant? That’s really noteworthy. And it’s a trick that Tante Louise has pulled off through decades of ups and downs, of flashy culinary fads and trend-sucking foodies willing to fall for any…
Chef Billy Lam has his head down, and he’s thinking. “Hmmmm,” he says, drawing it out as his finger touches the menu here and there and there. “Udon?” he asks. “Definitely,” I tell him. “Definitely udon.” “Good.” Hunched over the counter, our heads almost touching, Lam and I study the…
If I’m looking for noodles, I head to Chef’s Noodle House (see review). But when I’ve got a yen for sizzling rice — that most theatrical of Chinese dishes, and one badly mangled these days by kitchens that don’t appreciate the inherent drama that once attended every Americanized Chinese dinner…
Scientists at the Webb-Waring Institute for Cancer, Aging and Antioxidant Research know the secret, and it’s not blueberries. According to a bartender at the Recovery Room, this joint fills with Institute researchers in the afternoon; when I stopped in at night, I found an eclectic neighborhood crowd that had made…
It’s bad enough when a few members of the Institute of Drinking Studies get together — fewer than five representatives is known as a “troubling” — but when you have the executive council and fifteen potential members, things quickly get out of hand. This is known as a “disaster.” By…
For more than twenty years, Rosa Linda Aguirre and her family have been dishing up some of Denver’s best Mexican food in the town’s most family-friendly eatery. The kids pictured on the original menu are all grown — although most continue to work in the restaurant — and grandchildren now…
On our first visit to The Oven, the server working the short bar near the front door leaned across the counter and casually asked Laura and me where we lived. It seemed a little creepy, and definitely forward. I mean, sure, we’re an attractive couple (Laura’s good-looking, anyway, and I…
Okay, so the James Beard House has had its share of troubles recently. But all scandals and criticism aside, it is a big name — maybe the big name — in the industry, and when you say “James Beard,” people sit up and listen. Why is it that I found…
When many non-smokers drink, they suddenly turn into smokers. Most of my friends are supposedly non-smokers, but after a few cocktails about half of them become “social” smokers — an ironic oxymoron, because I never feel particularly social toward someone blowing smoke in my face. Since I’m a solid non-smoker,…
