New owners for Theorie

When they bought the site of The Real World: Denver series at 1920 Market Street (formerly B-52 Billiards), Shane Alexander and Josh Hawkinson had big plans for the ultra-swank nightclub and restaurant they planned to name Theörie. But the reality of running a restaurant proved much rougher than life on…

Veggie Girl: Lucile’s Creole Cafe

I’ve been trying to get to New Orleans for years. The first time, my road trip across America was cut short by an early start date for a new job. The next time I wanted to go was for my honeymoon, and we seriously considered New Orleans before I decided…

Going green, saving green at The Kitchen

In a town of environmentally-conscious restaurants, The Kitchen could be greenest of them all. And now it’s saving you some green, too. The homey restaurant at 1039 Pearl Street has a daily “tasting hour” from 5:30-6:30 p.m., with $5 wines and $2.50 beers complimenting an array of small bites. There’s…

The Empire Lounge still has a way to go

It’s one of those things that has come to define a floor that’s actually concerned with the happiness and comfort of its guests, a little thing that shows a staff out for more than just tips and a night with no complaints. Fixing a wobbly table. True, a restaurant that…

The real counter culture at Johnny’s Diner

This is my fear: Someday, this modern turn toward the glorification of quote/unquote regional American cuisine and New American and modern American fusion will destroy what little we have left of the true American cuisine. Someday, many years from now, some smart-ass food writer is going to start waxing metaphoric…

Pho 7: Talk about a cursed location!

This past Saturday night, Pho 7 was the scene of something out of a Michael Bay film, when some jackass — in the middle of a scrap with some other jackass literally hanging out of the driver’s side window of his car — drove his BMW right through the front…

Hot food, hot topics at 8 Rivers

The new 8 Rivers, at 1550 Blake Street, is becoming a hot spot for politics as well as Caribbean cooking. Even before it officially opened on October 1, six weeks behind its original target, it hosted hungry and thirsty politicos — including Nancy Pelosi, Walter Mondale, Harry Reid, Ken Salazar…

TV or not TV? That’s no question for these chefs

Chef Hosea Rosenberg Bright knives, big city. The fifth season of Bravo’s Top Chef premieres tonight at 8 p.m. MST when seventeen chefs compete in Top Chef: New York. The lineup includes Melissa Harrison, sous chef at Centro Latin Kitchen & Refreshment Palace in Boulder, and Hosea Rosenberg, exec chef…

The Fainting Goat Stands Tall

At 11 a.m. today, The Fainting Goat will be standing tall — and open, at 846 Broadway, in the former home of Moon Time, and Minturn, and Basil’s, and the Parlour before that. The Parlour is the first incarnation that Mark Holland remembers, and the memory was enough to get…

It’s about Thyme: sampling the new chef at the Harvest House

Executive chef Dedric McGhee (left) and executive sous Paul Stickler make a meal at the Millennium Harvest House a stirring experience. The Millennium Harvest House is finally ready for this millennium, with executive chef Dedric McGhee and executive sous Paul Stickler now overseeing menu and food preparation at the hotel…

The Empire of my imagination

The Empire Lounge and Restaurant is no dinosaur, even if its inspiration dates back to the ’70s. At the front, on a Saturday night with an overfull house and spillover crowds starting to pack the bar, I’d been given a dinosaur — a large, plastic tyrannosaurus rex—and had felt less…

In hog heaven at Big Papa’s BBQ

After my recent Second Helping on Big Papa’s BBQ, one of my favorite barbecue joints, I received this missive from Big Papa himself: I’m glad you like my BBQ (particularly the baby backs). I’ll tell my mom that you think her potato salad recipe is bland. You should get to…

Amici’s Pizzeria taking over the old Gemini

For 28 years Amici’s Pizzeria has served up pizza and basic, red-sauce Italian to north Denver neighbors from its strip-mall location at 5330 Sheridan Boulevard. But come January 2009, it’ll have a brand-new address — in the old Gemini Restaurant space at 4300 Wadsworth Boulevard. Gemini, which managed to make…

Happy Birthday Dubbel Dutch

Happy Birthday to moo. Happy fifth birthday to Dubbel Dutch, a tiny store and deli at 4974 Lowell Boulevard that sells Dutch gift items like wooden shoes, as well as groceries and such specialty items as stroopwafels (syrup waffle), speculaasjes (windmill cookies), hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), poffertjes (little pancakes), kaas (cheeses)…

What’s cooking at the Colorado Department of Agriculture?

The Colorado Department of Agriculture says it’s open to any chef willing to throw that giant white hat into the frying pan – as long as they’re cooking up recipes involving such Colorado grown products as onions, squash, apples or last month’s pumpkins. But apparently not everyone got the memo…

Bueno for Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires has cut itself another piece of Colorado’s dining pie. Four years ago, Francis Carrera gambled on Buenos Aires Pizzeria, an Argentinian pizza joint that he opened in a modest storefront at the then-unhip address of 1307 22nd Street, just off Larimer. And then he gambled again in June…

Davies Chuck Wagon Diner is now a triple threat

The Davies diner horse has overlooked West Colfax for fifty years. In the beginning, there was Davies Chuck Wagon Diner, a classic diner that’s stood sentinel at 9495 West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood for fifty years now, serving up the area’s Best Chicken Fried Steak as well as other greasy-spoon…

From dim sum to Mexican at the Mee Yee Lin space

Mee Yee Lin was once the town’s best dim sum restaurant. But that was before Super Star Asian moved into Alameda Square, and Mee Yee Lin left its down-at-the-heels home at 3090 West Alameda for a much bigger space out east, at 2295 South Chambers Road in Aurora. My meals…

The once and future Tosh’s

The original Tosh’s Hacienda, post-expansion. Tosh’s may be making a comeback: After surrendering his landmark restaurant in Five Points to a mountain of debt, Ruben Tracy Mackintosh has filed for a liquor license for Tosh’s Cantina at 8101 East Belleview Avenue down in Marina Square. For close to fifty years,…

An ode to two-meal days. Or: Making you hungry on a Monday morning

Start your next two-meal day at The Kitchen, in Boulder (Photo from thekitchencafe.com). Note: Writing this made the author extremely hungry and on pace for an 11:45 lunch break. Readers who brought Lean Cuisine to work should read with caution. I entertained an out-of-town guest this weekend. And because said…