It’s normal for a restaurant owner to be nervous on opening day — even if it’s not your first rodeo and you’ve assembled an experienced staff. There’s often chaos, flared tempers and a general reaction of palpable fretfulness. But this morning, at the new Maria Empanada, the vibe was pure…
The Pearl Street location in Boulder that used to hold Antica Roma has a new tenant dishing out an old-school cuisine: Sforno Trattoria Romana. See also: First look: Michael Bortz’s City Bakery Cafe opens today…
With the flurry of new restaurant openings, it’s all too easy to sweep some of the older ones — like the restaurant where this photo was snapped — under the rug, but this lively spot, which is celebrating ten years feeding the neighborhood in which it resides, continues to command…
Cafe Society dished up five Guess Where? contests last week, ranging from an Argentinean pizza topped with egg and hearts of palm from Buenos Aires Pizzeria to a sizzling platter of tandoori chicken from India’s Castle to a bowl of crab dip with housemade potato chips from a restaurant that…
When the Gypsy Cafe & Parlor popped up in an old garage downtown last summer, the idea was odd, but interesting. Owner Ray Derani — whose twin sisters own Capitol Hill’s Gypsy House Cafe, and whose mother was doing the cooking at both places — had planned to offer a…
Just a few days after the Archive Room closed in Olde Town Arvada, the Bar-On family took on the space, which was right across from an Udi’s Pizza Cafe & Bar, one of nine restaurants in the family’s homegrown empire. But for the new space, they chose a new concept:…
This week in Cafe Society, Gretchen Kurtz reviewed the Bar-On family’s latest restaurant venture: Braun Taphaus & Grille, a sports bar with an Austrian accent; meanwhile, Lori Midson reported on the new names — three names, actually — that the family will use for the rest of its empire, since…
Sure, you can get a Hawaiian pizza here, and a pizza with the ever-present prosciutto, too, but most of the pizzas at this charmer zigzag in a different direction, most notably a pizza studded with ham, palm hearts and egg, its surface paved with a Latin American salsa rosada. Can…
Despite the fact that it wasn’t even open, zealous bread heads — 250 of them to be exact — rose to the occasion yesterday, forming long lines at master baker Michael Bortz’s City Bakery Cafe, the restaurant-retail offshoot of City Bakery, Bortz’s bread-baking emporium in north Denver, which supplies loaves…
The Capitol Hill neighborhood has changed a lot over the past twenty years, but through it all, Barricuda’s Restaurant & Lounge, at 1076 Ogden Street, has been a true neighborhood hangout, a place for stiff drinks, good food (served until 4 a.m. on weekends!) and very good times. And all…
The forecast is sunny, at least for tomorrow, so diners all over Denver are already making plans for brunch, this city’s favorite meal. After the Best of Denver 2014, in which we named Fooducopia the Best Brunch, we served up our list of the dozen best brunch spots in Denver…
Like vegetables, desserts are seasonal. Just as we’re moving out of winter’s root vegetables and into spring’s pea shoots and asparagus, we’re also moving towards refreshing sweets such as berry tarts and ice cream. But we’re not there yet, which is why you’ll still see heavier fare such as bread…
Denver restaurants are rolling out new happy hour menus to coincide with the warmer weather, and late yesterday afternoon, while the sun was warming my neck, I enjoyed one of the new happy hour dishes — crab dip and housemade potato chips — at a joint whose two patios were…
Jimmy “Snarf” Seidel Snarf’s eatatsnarfs.com Snarfburger snarfburger.com This is part two of my interview with Jimmy Seidel, chef-owner of Snarf’s and Snarfburger; part one of our conversation ran yesterday. Most memorable meal you’ve ever had: I’ve had some very memorable meals in my life, including the one where I asked…
This week, Gretchen Kurtz ventured to Arvada, to Braun Taphaus & Grille, which the Bar-On family (Udi’s) opened last November as a not-so-typical sports bar, one whose menu is flavored with Austrian accents. Read Kurtz’s review of Braun’s, now posted on Cafe Society…
Nooch Vegan Market, the vegan store owned and operated by Joshua LaBure and Vanessa Gochnour since August 2012, left its original home in RiNo last month and is reopening today in the Baker neighborhood, at 10 East Ellsworth Avenue. With twice the space they had at their original store, Labure…
A friend of mine — a bona fide burger baron — turned me on to this burger joint, which, he insisted, flipped a burger that was the closest meat-between-the-bun he’d ever eaten that mimicked a famed burger from In-N-Out. It wasn’t quite quite an In-N-Out burger, but I agree that…
Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with a spacious kitchen. They often bring some of their market’s best ingredients home with them and cook up a feast, and when they’re not…
Jimmy “Snarf” Seidel Snarf’s eatatsnarfs.com Snarfburger snarfburger.com This is part one of my interview with Jimmy Seidel, chef-owner of Snarf’s and Snarfburger; part two of our conversation will run tomorrow. If you’ve ever wondered why Jimmy Seidel, owner of Snarf’s and Snarfburger, named his joints what he did, all you…
In A Federal Case, I’ll be eating my way up Federal Boulevard — south to north — within Denver city limits. I’ll be skipping the national chains and per-scoop Chinese joints, but otherwise I’ll report from every vinyl booth, walk-up window and bar stool where food is served. Here’s the…
In 2012, Udi’s Foods, one of the most prominent food brands in Colorado — and across the country — was sold to Boulder Brands for $125 million in a sale that required a number of prerequisites, including the stipulation that the owners of Udi’s Foods would rebrand its company and…
A black hole at 2200 South Broadway has swallowed another restaurant: an outpost of Zocalo. The building that was once home to Mr. Steak has housed a succession of unsuccessful spots over the last decade, and the news of yet another closure prompted one reader to suggest that it’s time…
