In the minority: The only grand slam found at Denny’s these days comes from a door being closed–the one that says “Everyone is welcome.” If Denny’s is like most chains, an enormous binder somewhere spells out company policies on everything from what shoes employees must wear to how long french…
The Beef Council couldn’t have put it any better than Mark Twain did in A Tramp Abroad: “Imagine a poor exile, and imagine an angel suddenly sweeping down out of a better land and setting before him a mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputtering…
Unfriendly fire: Colorado’s “at-will” law regarding firing hits hard in the restaurant industry, where it’s often easier to hire a new body than to take the time to train, rehabilitate or accommodate an old one. The bottom line of “at-will” means that an employee can be fired for nearly any…
There’s no surer way to send an executive chef running for the aspirin bottle than to tell him that the pastry chef served forty slices of pie burned black on the bottom, or that the prep cook forgot to grill the shrimp required for that evening’s special, or that the…
Taste’s good: Despite the fact that Greyhound lost my luggage, one of the babysitters drove our child nuts and the electricity disappeared throughout Vail an hour before the big event (while I was ironing my one dress, I might add), the fifth annual Taste of Vail was a blast. Where…
So you want to open a restaurant? The recipe for success has gotten quite simple: pasta and whatever. The beauty of something made from flour and water and a little egg is that it goes with everything. Pasta with jalapenos! Pasta with 75 kinds of cheese! Pasta with a microbrew!…
A real fun guy: As a hired belly, I am no stranger to exotic and unusual foods. Rattlesnake, you ask? Bring it on. I’ve also tried yak, goat and, at a restaurant in Beaver, Pennsylvania, called the Wooden Angel, lion that the owner had flown in from Africa for a…
Looking through the open window into the closet of a kitchen, the first thing you see is the top of her black-haired head, and before the front door closes, her smiling face pops up in greeting. Someone else takes you to one of the tables in an adjoining room, but…
Chain gang: No fewer than 36 restaurant chains plan to add Denver links within the next year. With the number of recent local eatery additions and the sizable dining community already in place, something has to give–and I’m betting it ain’t gonna be the big-money corporations. Of the impending arrivals,…
Cement with a side of cabbage. That’s the way most of the world sees German cuisine, the fat, jolly cousin of the food family. We’re talking heavy, heavy, heavy here: potatoes and dumplings and thick, greasy sausages and–ach du lieber!–next thing you know, you’re laying down a foundation for a…
The mold and the beautiful: Last week, during an otherwise wonderful tapas experience in Ranelle’s at 2390 South Downing, I popped a stuffed mushroom in my mouth, only to pop it back out again when I realized it had turned into a flu remedy. Although the waitress kindly took the…
Like the reptile it was named for, the Rattlesnake Grill began making noise long before it struck. The hum started about a year ago when rumors ran rampant that, yes, the Jimmy Schmidt would be opening a new version of his Rattlesnake Club, the tony, very expensive (and therefore much-maligned)…
The ballpark’s in your court: With the opening of Coors Field only nine days away, new restaurants are popping up all over LoDo. Morton’s of Chicago completes its move from the Tivoli to 17th Street and Wynkoop this week with a grand opening March 24, the proceeds of which ($100…
Dad was “in Vietnam”–the polite way my family referred to that whole mess of a war–for three years, so it was only natural that some of the country rubbed off on him. I didn’t realize how much, though, until years later, when I began to recognize that Vietnam had flavored…
Up the creek: It was the first time I’d been served a piece of cake decorated with green rings of mold–and I’m hoping it will be the last. What surprised me wasn’t that it finally happened, but where it happened–La Piazza, at 2710 East Third Avenue in Cherry Creek North…
In the virtual reality of the future, we won’t need to leave our La-Z-Boys to travel (much less venture out to Denver International Airport)–we’ll just insert tapes in our video monitors and play tourist without suffering through the hassles of sore feet, lost luggage and stolen wallets. In the meantime,…
It’s Chiffon: Dozens of victims have come forward with more tales to tell about Westword cover girl Ruth Chiffon von Seeburg-Schausten Prager, better known in these parts as Chiffon (“Would You Buy a Used Restaurant From This Woman?,” February 15). There seem to be quite a few people who loaned…
For years Village Inn has encouraged people to drop on in at Cherry Creek–and no one complains. But let some of the newer, hipper chain restaurants move into the area and all hell breaks loose. Chains rattle other restaurants for two reasons. The first, and most galling, is that the…
Beer today, gone tomorrow: The upscaling of LoDo continues, with a facelift of the venerable–and appropriately named–Terminal Bar now under way. The last time this watering hole at 17th Avenue and Wazee tried something new, owner Nancy Archer–herself an Aussie–succumbed to lower-downtown duenna Dana Crawford’s suggestion that Archer cash in…
It usually starts with the word “ribs.” Maybe someone tickles me there, or a television commercial talks about something sticking to them, or I’m at church and the preacher mentions Adam. No matter how the word gets there, though, once it’s in my brain, it begins turning over like a…
Bust of Denver: It has been brought to my attention that an impostor lurks in some of the town’s better neighborhoods. A glossy publication called Entree bills itself as “The Best of Denver Menus,” but it has nothing to do with Westword’s annual Best of Denver issue, for which I…
The bleached blonde wet her lips, leaned forward and pressed her hand dramatically against the mammoth mammary glands that were on the verge of busting out of her black evening dress like two fat kids escaping an overheated car. “The problem with DIA,” she said, “is that a minority mayor…
