The Bite

The Wynkoop’s hoping to get all decked out.

Comments (0) By Patricia Calhoun Thursday, May 9 2002

...continued from page 1

While some rooms will still be reserved for private parties, seating in the glorious gardens will be open to all.

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Pearl Street Grill

1477 S. Pearl St.
Denver, CO 80210

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: South Denver

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Momo mia! We're going to attempt to untangle the big snarl of spaghetti left in this space last week, with some help from longtime restaurateur Venanzio Momo. The former Pizza Colore Cafe in Writer Square is now Cafe Colore (1512 Larimer Street), a licensed store of T2 Ventures (a company owned by the Momo family); Keith Arnold is Cafe Colore's proprietor, and he's continuing the shift in emphasis from pizzas to more upscale pastas. There's still a Pizza Coloreat 1336 Pearl Street in Boulder; it, too, is a licensed store of T2 Ventures, and Dan Shaffer is the proprietor. Also in Boulder, at 1124 13th Street, is Teresa's Pizza Colore, a licensed store of -- you guessed it -- T2 Ventures. The Pizzeria Colore Expressat 1647 Court Place, just off the 16th Street Mall in Denver, is owned by Caroline Momo-Torres (and remains a great place to grab a pie at lunch). Meanwhile, it's business as usual at Cucina Colore (3041 East Third Avenue), the Momo family's flagship in Cherry Creek.

For a more complicated restaurant lineage, you'd have to look to the Chubby's empire, which began when Stella Cordovatook over Chubby Burger Drive-In (1231 West 38th Avenue) in 1967 and turned it into a Mexican-food mecca. Between offspring and casual franchise agreements, the Chubby's chain grew across the city; it's since contracted until Chubby Burger (which bills itself as "The Original Chubby's Mexican Food") is really the only pure Chubby's remaining. It's certainly the only one that stays open until 3 a.m. on weekends, or draws such a crowd at lunchtime on weekdays that a to-go order can take half an hour -- and that's with the kitchen working fast on the twenty orders that got in ahead of you. Right now, though, to-go is your only option at Chubby's; the expansion project that started almost two years ago has stalled midway through, and it's still in limbo. "We're waiting for permits from the city," explains a Chubby's employee.

There are still El Chubby's and Chubby's and numbered Chubby's restaurants scattered around town, but they're at best distant relations -- and so is their green chile. For example, at Chubasco Mexican Food, the renamed Chubby's #7 (801 Santa Fe Drive), a smothered beef-and-bean burrito is as big and gloppy as what you find at the Original Chubby's, and it's the same price ($3.20). But the meat inside isn't nearly as spicy, and the green, while it does bear some resemblance to the Original's, isn't nearly as mean. The one-and-only Chubby's green chile is a sense-singeing explosion of flavors, an addictive, molten salt lick that will cure almost anything that ails you -- except dehydration.

Chubasco's burrito does have at least one advantage, though: It arrives in about twenty seconds.

Please note that this Bite has been an entirely Campo de Fiori-free zone.