Grand Lux Cafe closed in Park Meadows last week. According to the Park Meadows website, the mall (inside or out) still has Brio Tuscan Grille, California Pizza Kitchen, Champps, Cru – a Wine Bar, Earl’s, La Sandia, P.F. Chang’s, Red Robin, Thai Basil, White Chocolate Grill and two restaurant/pubs in…
This is our thirtieth Best of Denver edition. Over the years, we’ve given at least 15,000 awards. Some of the categories — Best Mobile Hot Tub? — have disappeared, reflecting how trends come and go in a boom-and-bust-and-boom town; other honorees, such as the Winter Park Ski Train, simply reached…
Be afraid. Be very afraid. The inaugural Stanley Film Festival, which will run May 2 through May 5 this year in Estes Park, is holding an open house for fright-film fans and potential volunteers tonight. The four-day Stanley Film Festival, which will celebrate the best in independent horror cinema, will…
Craft beers are not Colorado’s only liquid assets. This state’s craft-spirit industry is booming, too. Two years ago, when the Colorado Bartenders Guild, the Colorado Distillers Guild, Westword and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver banded together on the Colorado Cocktail Project, the Distillers Guild had fewer than twenty members…
The explosions outside the State Capitol yesterday startled people from downtown to Capitol Hill. But unlike so many other explosions today, these were planned. Artillery blasts marked the 151st anniversary of the Battle of Glorieta Pass, on March 26, 1862, when Colonel Major John Chivington led members of the First…
For fifty years, fans of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, an ecstatic recount of crossings and recrossings of North America in the late 1940s that provided a road map for the Beat generation, have been waiting for a movie of the book. Fans in Denver have a particularly interest: Muse…
In advance of the Best of Denver 2013, which will hit the streets (and the web) later today, we took a look back at the winners of the Best New Restaurant award over the past decade. Most of those winners are still going strong; a few have lost the chefs…
There have been several big restaurant openings in the past month — including Old Major and Beast + Bottle — but diners are already setting their sights on fall, when Brian Laird, longtime chef at Barolo (and most recently at Sketch and consulting with the Armoury), will open his own…
For Governor John Hickenlooper, it was a very hard week at the end of a hard year, filled with disasters both natural and man-made — disasters Colorado is still struggling to understand. The frustrations that consumed Hickenlooper over the past twelve months came bubbling out during an interview about his…
The idea for Grand Lux Cafe came to life when the Venetian Resort, Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas asked David Overton, founder of the Cheesecake Factory chain, to create an upscale casual restaurant concept for their property. But what happened in Vegas should have stayed in Vegas — or…
Is Denver International Airport in the dark? The airport will be celebrating touchy-feely Earth Hour tomorrow, turning off lights between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 23. The black-out includes the illuminated DIA sign along Pena Boulevard, the illuminated sign marking the Jeppesen Terminal and the lights on…
The Alamo Drafthouse will officially open on Monday, March 25, with a grand-opening ceremony featuring Pam Grier. But starting today and running through the weekend, the Drafthouse will be showing a series of bargain-priced films — just $2 per ticket! — including recent hits like Zero Dark Thirty and classics…
The Bubba Chinos that opened last summer in a space near City Hall that has been many, many restaurants over the years has closed, too — for “renovations,” according to a sign on the door that says the place will reopen in ten days. But if it does, it doesn’t…
It should be all hearts and flowers when Governor John Hickenlooper signs the civil unions bill at History Colorado this afternoon. But we’re betting that this historic moment will also have a history-making amount of security, given the vehement response to Hickenlooper’s signing of three gun measures yesterday — just…
Bop & Gogi, a fast-casual Korean joint, opened last fall in Centennial. Gretchen Kurtz reviews Bop & Gogi this week and likes many things there, including spicy radish kimchi, with chunks of daikon radish and a touch of ground pear — but not much stink. See also: – Bop &…
When all the smoke clears over the gun debate, Colorado will still have other tough issues to tackle. What’s the future of this state? That’s what TBD Colorado wants to determine. Last year, the non-partisan nonprofit — “No state dollars are being spent on TBD Colorado,” its website promises –…
What are the worst fast-food joints in the country? Last week Jenn Wohletz offered her list of five chain restaurants that should be put in chains, for various crimes against humanity, good taste — and often any taste at all. One of the culprit’s? Arby’s, which reminded a reader when…
Joe Garcia, Colorado’s coolest lieutenant governor, won’t be going to Washington, D.C. — not now, at least, and not as the head of the Department of Labor. Yesterday, the White House announced that Tom Perez, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, will take that post. Like Garcia, Perez…
Confused about which Chubby’s is which? Join the club. The Original Chubby’s that is slated to open next week at 14th and Kalamath is a second venture by Julian Cordoba, who opened the first Original Chubby’s in Thornton in 1987. But the true original Chubby’s is still the spot that…
The James Beard Foundation just released the finalists for this year’s food and restaurant awards, and the list of locals has been whittled considerably since the semifinalists were announced back in February. Then five Denver chefs made the list; now only chef Jennifer Jasinski, co-owner of Rioja, Bistro Vendome and…
Want evidence of just how colorful Colorado has become? Stop by the Colorado Senate this morning, where two big bills will be considered. One, calling for new sex education standards, shows how very blue the Colorado Legislature is these days, The second, HB 13-1061, which would set standards for “responsible…
Going, going, almost gone. Tomorrow Grand Lux Cafe will join the ranks of eateries that have closed in Park Meadows. Five years ago, not long after the giant restaurant opened, then-critic Jason Sheehan had what might have been the worst shrimp scampi ever…and he didn’t find much there that was…
