Sonny daze: Rando “Sonny” Santino–saint or sinner? The restaurant industry loves nothing more than a good food fight, and these days the rumblings always return to the owner of Santino’s, at 1939 Blake Street. In one corner are the people who believe the rumors that Sonny is a monster, a…
Retail retort: If you can’t bring yourself to do hard time at Alcatraz Brewing Co. (see Cafe, previous page), Park Meadows proper offers another haven for beer drinkers–Nordstrom Pub, conveniently located directly behind the men’s department at Nordstrom. The warm, comfortable pub doesn’t brew its own beer, but it does…
The area surrounding the “retail resort” of Park Meadows has sprouted buildings like so many landscape pimples over the past year. And each time one of them erupted into a restaurant, the dining-starved residents of the south burbs flocked to it like frat boys to a kegger. In this microbrew-obsessed…
When four Park Hill families didn’t like what was happening in their neighborhood, they decided to band together and do something about it. But it wasn’t crime they were fighting, or drugs, bums or slums–it was the lack of a good neighborhood restaurant. And so, after many months of backyard…
Alcohol rub: When the Cherry Tomato (see review, previous page) applied for a liquor license right after the place opened last spring, the owners were bombarded with letters from neighborhood people purporting to oppose the application. At the hearing, though, only 30 people showed up to fight the license, while…
As Denver’s restaurant industry has fattened over the past decade, business at the old favorites has thinned. Almost forgotten in the face of fresh Mexican grills and pseudo-tapas bars, these longtime standbys somehow keep things cooking. Don Quijote is one such blast from the past, one of those restaurants that,…
South of the border patrol: When I visit decent places like Don Quijote (see review above), I realize there’s no excuse for serving lousy Mexican food. Since the ingredients for most Mexican dishes are inherently cheap, the difference comes down to a willingness to take the extra step involved in…
Get to the Points: Kal’line’s owners aside, not everyone is enthusiastic about the promotional work being done by the Five Points Business Association and the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development (MOED). “I’m going to tell you my truly and honest position,” says George Brown, whose Brown Sugar’s Burgers and Bones…
Rebuild it, and they will come. At least that’s what Willy, John and Mac Watts are counting on in Five Points, where their year-old Kal’line’s Cafe has slowly been building a following of Denverites who appreciate good soul and American cooking. Kal’line’s is named for the Watts brothers’ mother, Caroline…
Consider the alternatives: You’re downtown at lunchtime and feel the cream-cheesy pull of the Cheesecake Factory. What to do? How about trying one of these locally owned spots that serve better food–and without a wait to get it. Like the Factory’s pastas? The selection at City Spirit Cafe (1434 Blake…
Who is waiting in line at the Cheesecake Factory? I’ll tell you who: the same people who give me dirty looks and curse under their breath when I take eight items into the nine-item express line at the grocery store. The same people who roll their eyes and sigh repeatedly…
Warning: If you are under thirty, unbelievably gorgeous, hip and charming, a wine taster and wearer of a 100 percent cotton T-shirt in basic white or black–or if you desperately want to be any of the above–the following food-related opinions will mean nothing to you. What you want is a…
Street eats: Hey! We thought it was against the rules to take food into Elitch’s. So why were two pizzas delivered to employees of the amusement park’s guest relations office last Thursday? Nice of Wellington Webb to grab coffee at Dixons, 1610 16th Street, when he took his walking tour…
The New York Deli News is housed in a classic California Coffee Shop structure, with windows reaching boldly for the early-1960s sky’s-the-limit sky. Nevertheless, it’s the kind of restaurant that seems to have been around forever. I know for a fact I ate here when I was four or five,…
Pulling up steaks: Two Denver dining landmarks are history. Although both enjoyed their heydays at about the same time–the Seventies and early Eighties–their clientele came from decidedly opposite ends of the spectrum. Glendale’s Colorado Mine Co. ruled in Denver’s disco days–and owners Buck and Cindy Scott were king and queen…
A few weeks ago I awoke dogged by a beautiful fantasy. This was it: Every day precisely at noon, I would rise from my typewriter, don my fedora, slip a detective novel into my suit pocket and head over to the Union Station lunch counter, where a sneering counter boy…
Union label: Redfish Seafood Kitchen, reviewed by Robin Chotzinoff in this issue, doesn’t look (or taste) like part of a chain–but you sure can tell its public relations firm is from out of town. A release faxed over on July 29 announces, “Soooo, Denver’s been having a little heat wave…
When partners George Blincoe and Michael Reed brag that their brewpub serves the “best dam beer” and “best dam food” in Colorado, they can be forgiven the hyperbole, if not the pun–because when you open yet another brewery/restaurant in a county that boasts more breweries per capita than any other…
A shot in the dark: According to the announcement stuffed into the mailing envelope, “Mexico’s Legendary Secret Hits the U.S.” in the form of Don Julio tequila. But the big secret may be how the importer, Remy Amerique, Inc., got a liquor sample through the U.S. Postal Service, which delivered…
What’s on tapas? So far, the summer’s big food trend is the return of tapas–essentially dim sum for the bar crowd. The town’s last two places to really push tapas are now pushing up daisies: Majorca looked great but business wasn’t; its old space at 777 East 17th Avenue is…
So many of the dreamy things attributed to childhood are a crock. The innocence, for instance, or “the carefree days of…” A popular parenting cliche is: “What are you complaining about? You’ll never have it this good again.” But all of this is just plain wrong. It’s hard and weird…
Another opening, another chow: After a lull of, oh, about a minute, restaurants are popping up in LoDo faster than fly balls in nearby Coors Field. Last Thursday Redfish Seafood Kitchen opened in the Union Station space previously occupied by TGIFriday (and thank God that one’s gone); even though this…
