Vesta giving away twenty happy hours

Vesta Dipping Grill, at 1822 Blake Street, is launching its own “Colorado Stimulus Plan,” and giving away a month of happy hours — a total of twenty in June (one every Monday through Friday through the month). According to Vesta’s announcement, the owners (who are also responsible for Steuben’s) “feel…

Senor Rita’s is no mas

Senor Rita’s, the “Cantina and Mexican Grill’ at  5007 East Colfax, is on permanent siesta.  The restaurant was closed last Sunday by the Little Pub Company because it failed to meet expectations, according to the only person I could reach at company headquarters. And that’s uncommon for a Little Pub…

Delicious Designs: Eat this restaurant, part four

To celebrate Colorado Architecture Month, the state chapter of the American Institute of Architects has paired up with local chefs for the Delicious Design program, creating desserts inspired by specific buildings in Colorado. Thursday’s dessert was from Steuben’s, Friday’s featured design from Carelli’s in Boulder, yesterday’s was at Root Down,…

Jet’s Pizza Republica ready for takeoff

After a few delays, Jet Entertainment Group is slated to open Pizza Republica, its restaurant in the Landmark project in Greenwood Village, on May 8. According to the optimistically present-tense description on Jet’s website, “Pizza Republica focuses on homemade cooking using local and organic produce whenever possible.  The marinara, mozzarella,…

Olivea opening May 4

Restaurants will be popping up like May flowers all over town next month. First of the big blooms: Olivea, at 719 East 17th Avenue (the former home of Aix), is slated to open May 4. It’s coming from Keith Arnold and Stephanie Bonin (owners of Duo), and John Broening and…

Dreaming of Tuscan meatloaf at Farro

I met Matt Franklin through his cuisine — screwjack Californian with a heavy dose of Colorado pride and a squirrelly streak of fusion that should’ve made me want to throw something at his head but, instead, kept his style fresh and surprising. Under the neon, tile and blue Miami Vice…

Master, by the glass

The Master clan was back in town yesterday to do a little family-brand wine pimping at Sketch.  And guess who was there to taste the offerings? That’s right, yours truly.  And while I generally avoid things like opening-night parties, wine tastings, benefit dinners and “celebrity chef” parties like the plagues that…

Noca is no go

Back in December, Robert Thompson (formerly of Brasserie Rouge, the Atomic Cowboy and B-52 Billiards) announced that his Chicago company, Seasoned Development, would open its first Noca Kitchen at 1433 17th Street in Denver. “Noca Kitchen is going to be a substantial growth vehicle for us in Denver, as well…

Delicious Designs: Eat this restaurant, part three

To celebrate Colorado Architecture Month, the state chapter of the American Institute of Architects has paired up with local chefs for the Delicious Design program, creating desserts inspired by specific buildings in Colorado. Thursday’s dessert was from Steuben’s, Friday’s featured design from Carelli’s in Boulder, and today? Root Down, located…

Casselman’s opens in NoDo

Casselman’s Bar & Venue opened this past weekend at 2620 Walnut Street, in the space where Shakespeare’s Pub, once an institution in the Platte Valley, lasted less than a year. Maybe that’s why owner Matt Casselman wants to refer to the neighborhood as “NoDo.” But he could soon rake in…

Ask the Critic: Where to go for a break-up date?

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I haven’t been on a lot of dates. Thus far, my personal history of socio-sexual relations has been divided into two very distinct categories.  Depending on the year, the place and my condition, I have either gotten by as some kind of…

Otto’s Grill opening in former downtown Brix

While Charlie Master is now ensconced at Sketch, his former restaurant, Brix, is slowly settling into history. Although the original Brix space at 3000 East Fillmore Street is again empty (Barron’s died within weeks), the second Brix location, downtown at 2200 Market Street, should reopen on Friday, May 1, as…

The Market Report, April 25

Three Boulder Farmers’ Markets so far, and I’ve seen the sun only one time more than I’ve seen Rush Limbaugh. The first was sunny, the second snowy (and cancelled), and this past Saturday’s? Drizzly. It was still pleasant, though, sort of a natural version of a supermarket’s attempt at playing…

Ask the readers: Who has the best happy hour?

Bad times make for good deals, as restaurants and bars try to woo customers with great happy-hour deals. For example, at Emilio’s Super Chef, 338 East Colfax Avenue, you can get a “Fiesta Bucket” with five full-size Mexican beers for just $10 bucks from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday through…

Can you smell summer yet?

If winter is the new summer when it comes to firing up the backyard grill (as I reported last December), then the big snowfalls of the past few weeks mean spring must be the new winter – which is fine, since winter is summer anyway. I think. And summer begins…

Milking It: Frosted Mini-Wheats Little Bites Chocolate

Frosted Mini-Wheats Little Bites Chocolate Kellogg’s Rating: A half-spoon out of four Cereal description: Whole grain wheat welded into a wiry-looking brown square diode, with one side flocked with white sugary spew and the other more or less naked to the world.They’re hard and heavy, although not hard and heavy…

Pure has something to get off its chest

Club Roxy, housed in the building at 2549 Welton Street that was once the down’s first black movie theater, turned into Pure late last year. Now it’s definitely having some impure thoughts, judging from a recent ad on Craigslist for “GOGO Dancers/ Coaktail Staff,” which announces: “We are currently looking…

Gaia, meet Chaos

When Jason Sheehan bemoaned the loss of Nosh last month, I shared in his solemnity. Not only was the gelato parlor in my ‘hood, but it was damn good gelato, and the spot’s lovely courtyard gardens, bedecked with wrought-iron benches and chairs and a trellised gazebo, were a communal pit…

Cafe Society: Week in review

What you might have missed this week on Cafe Society…Cafe Star has reopened as a second Trattoria Stella, while Park Burger is still on the back burner and a new Santoro’s is on the way.As if you need another excuse to buy that burrito bowl you love so much–drop into…

Cafe Star now another Trattoria Stella

There was much lamenting last month when owners Tom and Marna Sumners announced that they would be closing Cafe Star, at 3201 East Colfax Avenue, a restaurant I loved back in the days when Rebecca Weitzman was running the kitchen. But that was a long time ago, and Cafe Star…

Santoro’s adds a new location

Santoro’s Brick Oven Pizzeria, our Best French Fries–Boardwalk winner in 2004, is opening another location. It’s at Broadway and Mineral, in the Safeway shopping center — and about ten miles from Santoro’s current spot at 9500 Heritage Hills Circle in Littleton. I grew up near the original Santoro’s, and know…

DO U LVTOFU?

Kelley Coffman-Lee, the vegan Centennial mom who made national headlines this month when she announced that the Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles had rejected her attempts to buy a vanity license plate announcing ILVTOFU, is already a punchline. On April 18, the “Not My Job” segment of National Public Radio’s…