The Big Easy

Lucile's bring food, glorious food to the heart of Denver.

A A A Comments By Jason Sheehan Thursday, Dec 1 2005

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Like the Bagel Store, at 942 South Monaco Parkway, for example. This place sits in a quiet strip mall in the heart of Leetsdale's Little Russia, tucked away in the back tier next to a baby-supply store and almost entirely shielded from view by the Monaco Inn (a decent place for Greek food, by the way). It's open limited hours (6 a.m. until 2 p.m. on the dot), doesn't take plastic and is staffed by a bunch of young guys who look like the Beastie Boys circa 1986, when License to Ill was first flying off the shelves -- and the last time I was there, I had to walk out past some glaze-eyed old man in a trenchcoat and velcro sneakers standing in front of the Russian bookstore with his wang in his hand.

But if you go early, you get to look right through the doors into the huge bakery in the back, where you can see vats of bagels steaming in their water and guys with big arms and flour in their hair working the dough. You can smell the place doing things right. And you can pick up not only a passable version of an East Coast egg bagel (glossy and yellow on the outside, with a thick-chewy skin and pillowy dough inside, though it's a little dry for my taste), but a half-dozen fantastic salt bagels for less than four bucks. They're damp and spongy to the touch, lightly crusted with rough kosher-salt crystals, soft and just faintly, faintly sour. It's a great place, as honest as they come, and I'd trade a hundred Einstein Bros. shops for just one Bagel Store.

Location Info

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Lucile's Creole Cafe

275 S. Logan St.
Denver, CO 80209

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: South Denver

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Leftovers:Breakfast lovers have one more reason to celebrate, now that Jack-n-Grill (2524 Federal Boulevard) is open at 6 a.m. Jack Martinez extended the hours of his authentic New Mexican joint back in August, which means you can pick up everything from two-dollar breakfast burritos all day, breakfast tacos, and more standard Belen and 'Burque breakfasts of pancakes, waffles, sausage and so on before you hit the office or the slopes. And those great huevos rancheros remain available at breakfast, lunch or dinner.

The Martinez clan had tried to make a go of a second location on Old Wadsworth Boulevard in Arvada earlier this year. That plan didn't go as well as they (and everyone else on that side of Denver) had hoped it would, and the second spot closed after just a couple of months in business. But Martinez hasn't given up: There's another huge Jack-n-Grill under construction at 40th and Chambers in Aurora, with a target opening date of next April -- the first in a planned onslaught of Jack-n-Grill franchises.

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