Suddenly there are signs of life at El Rancho, the restaurant/conference center with its own exit off I-70. For the last few weeks, crews have been working inside, and a sign in one window of the 500-seat space promises “Fall 2015.” El Rancho got its start in 1947, when the…
No. 35: Meatloaf Sandwich at City Bakery Cafe Last January, Denver bread master Michael Bortz expanded his City Bakery concept to include a full breakfast and lunch cafe on Lincoln Street. The City Bakery Cafe has been serving breakfast pastries, egg sandwiches, soups, and hot and cold deli sandwiches since…
One bonus to the hideous traffic in town: While you’re stuck in yet another jam, you have plenty of time to spot all the new businesses popping up in booming Denver. But even with the boom, Boulevard Burger & Tap went bust, and its space at 727 Colorado Boulevard is…
When attempting to tease apart the strands of American cooking that weave together soul food and Southern food, there’s no better source than Adrian Miller, author of the James Beard-award winning Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time. Miller’s book is a great…
Grateful Bread is already one of our favorite bakeries in town, earning the Best Bread award in our Best of Denver 2015 edition — and owners Jeff Cleary and Kathy Mullen are about to make things even better. Starting in August, they’ll be milling their own specialty flours on a…
As a University of Colorado graduate, huge Buffs fan (which has been a little masochistic in recent years) and active participant in alumni organizations, I always feel like a bit of a traitor heading up to Fort Collins — a holdover from the rivalry with Colorado State from college days…
Burgers may be big business in many parts of Denver, but one place where they can’t seem to find favor is on the 700 block of Colorado Boulevard. Little H Burger moved into a shopping center across the street from Snooze in 2011, but didn’t last long, as parent H…
Attorney Sana Hamelin had a dream: to open a cat cafe, one of the first in the country. She found the purrfect spot at 3929 Tennyson Street, and late last year opened the Denver Cat Company, which immediately started attracting fans of coffee and kitties. And those fans came out…
Another chapter in Denver’s northwest side story ended when Elitch Lanes closed last night, after a weekend-long goodbye. “If you’ve been around northwest Denver, you know: The people who come in here are so much nicer than the average person,” owner Cal Eichinger had told us back in December, when he…
With weather looking better this week, at least before afternoon storms roll in, it’s the perfect weekend to roll out of bed and check out some of the restaurants on our list of the ten best brunches in Denver. If eggs and mimosas aren’t you’re thing, oysters and Anchorman-themed cocktails…
Darren “Big Country” Byrd came to Colorado from Texas to attend culinary school at Colorado Mountan College and opened a barbecue joint in Keystone in 2007. But he grew tired of nine months of winter a year and so moved his operation to Denver, where he’s been running a fleet…
When Blackbelly Market opened in east Boulder last fall, chef/owner Hosea Rosenberg had grand plans for offering the Front Range a full market, butcher shop, breakfast and lunch counter, and destination dining establishment. Those plans have all come together and Rosenberg’s kitchen is in full swing, offering a meat-centric menu…
After being served with a lawsuit last week over an alleged cat bite, the Denver Cat Company has received an outpouring of community support. Sana Hamelin, owner of the Denver Cat Company, one of only a few cat cafes in the country, wrote an emotional and frustrated Facebook post after being served…
Gretchen Kurtz did not have great experiences at Lo Stella Ristorante, which last fall moved into a space in the Golden Triangle that has swallowed up several other restaurants. And as she writes in her review this week, Kurtz found several things hard to swallow at Lo Stella, including the fact…
To win Alton Brown’s Cutthroat Kitchen on the Food Network last year, chef Dakota Soifer of Boulder’s Cafe Aion had to run a maze of red velvet ropes and make a red velvet cake using beets for color. It was, he says, “really fun and really cool, but I wouldn’t…
On Mother’s Day, we gave a collective shout-out to the moms in our lives. But mothers aren’t the only ones who help us reach our potential. Last week I wrote about the impact that well-known chef Max MacKissock had on Joshua Bitz, who worked with MacKissock for seven years and…
Jerry and Laura Lasco just opened a location of Max’s Wine Dive, their Texas-based chain, at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Sherman Street, but they’re into more than fried chicken and champagne. Diving into healthier eating as a way to combat high blood pressure and other health issues, they…
Mark Antonation is eating at soul-food restaurants for this month’s Ethniche, and his travels recently took him to Kirk’s Soul Kitchen in Aurora, where the restaurant occupies the former home of a payday loan. And given the setting, Kirk’s serves up some unusual stories along with authentic soul food. Says Joshua:…
Steve Horner, go back to your corner. Eight years ago, members of this city’s bar/restaurant industry felt like they were being held hostage by Steve Horner. The onetime radio personality/self-published author had filed one of the first major claims that ladies’ nights were discriminatory in his home state of Minnesota,…
Although opening day of Civic Center Eats was rained out on May 5, the twice-weekly food truck rally in Civic Center Park managed to squeeze in a couple of hours of lunch service last Thursday — and the sun even peeked out a little for the rescheduled official kickoff yesterday,…
Aurora’s Havana Street is awash with some of the most diverse ethnic cuisine in the Denver metro area; the cultural landscape is primed with every kind experience, from fine-ish dining to lovable dives to mom and pop eateries from almost every nationality and culture: Ethiopian, Vietnamese pho, dollar-a-scoop Chinese, Mexican…
The Squeaky Bean is about to get a new executive chef, Chris MacGillivray, who worked at the LoDo Bean under opening chef Max MacKissock; MacGillivray will be back to take over on May 20. Current chef Theo Adley’s last day will be on May 16; he’s given the Bean two…
