Global Crossing

First, there'll be two siblings for Nine75, the restaurant at 975 Lincoln Street that recently broke through the three-turn ceiling on a Saturday night for the first time, doing 280 covers out of its ninety-seat dining room two weekends ago -- just a few days past its six-month anniversary. One will be located around 120th Avenue and Federal Boulevard in Broomfield and will be called North of Nine75 -- at least for now. The second -- West of Nine75, natch -- will be in Lakewood's Belmar development, where the Sullivan Restaurant Group already has its sights set on putting in another Emogene Patisserie, the second outpost of a concept introduced earlier this year in Cherry Creek, right by Sullivan's first restaurant, Mao.

Along with this, according to PR spin-mistress Leigh Sullivan (daughter of Jim and wife of Troy Guard, exec at Nine75, who just received confirmation that he'll be cooking at the James Beard House in its "Great Regional Chefs of America" series on February 22), there's yet another restaurant in the offing -- the offspring of one of Sullivan's existing enterprises, but not a mini-Mao, and probably not a fourth Nine75. And rumors of yet another super-secret project downtown are making the rounds -- there's talk of a name (Oscar's) and a location (the current Diamond Cabaret). But when asked about this, Leigh says that she's not saying nuthin'. She's been in the business long enough to have learned to be superstitious about talking too much or too soon.

"None of these deals are signed," she notes. "So it's like a game -- which ones make it, which ones get voted off the island."

Leftovers: Jim Sullivan's not the only one opening restaurants. The most novel new eatery in town may be Ray's Grill, at 10009 East Hampden Avenue in Aurora, which claims to serve "fine Turkish cuisine" -- at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Also featuring expansive hours is Metro Kitchen + Bar, the joint that John Montzouris opened last month in the space at 12 East 11th Avenue that used to be Fat Daddy's. Metro is cooking up lunch, dinner and late-night snacks, just in time to sober up all those holiday revelers.