Casa Bonita

Goodbye, Smiley's Laundromat -- your ghosts are hung out to dry

If you grew up in Lakewood, Aurora, Wheat Ridge or Denver proper like me, chances are good that there's a slice of Colfax Avenue that holds a special, if not dangerous and possibly regrettable, meaning to you. Last week I passed by Smiley's Laundromat on East Colfax and noticed that it was all clo ... More >>

An alternative Denver A to Z exhibit to replace History Colorado's snoozer

Judgmental Denver map: choose your own gentrification adventure!

Finally, something floating around the cesspool of Facebook that we can care about enough to actually unify over. The "Judgmental Denver map" appeared in my newsfeed yesterday and has since been reposted at least forty times by people I know -- people who either think it's funny or are pissed becaus ... More >>

Born in the Flood at the Gothic, 12/21/12

BORN IN THE FLOOD @ GOTHIC THEATRE | 12/21/12 It seemed like members from about half the bands Denver were on hand for Born in the Flood's reunion show with Nathan & Stephen and In the Whale at the Gothic. Sure, it's not uncommon to see bands supporting other bands, but this felt like a high schoo ... More >>

Where to eat, drink and keep your guests merry this holiday season

With out-of-town guests beginning to trickle in for the holidays, it's a relief to know you won't have to house, feed and entertain them all by yourself. Well, make that "yes" on house, but with restaurants that double as entertainment zones, there's plenty of help in the other two areas. Some of t ... More >>

From a Colorado native to a transplant: Your altitude problem is my attitude problem

I was complaining via that modern adult whiny message board known as Twitter recently that the only people who like John Denver are non-natives. I also blame those same anonymous people for Denver's traffic, gentrification, the popularity of days-long dubstep shows at Red Rocks (and the sickening po ... More >>

Part two: Denver and Boulder's most quotable chefs

Thanksgiving is a day that gives us food for thought and time to reflect on the things for which we're thankful -- our health, our friends, our kids, our jobs and dogs, wine, and the family master baster whose glossy golden turkey supplied leftovers for the next week. And this year, as we were going ... More >>

Meet the 2012 Denver #WebAwards winners

Things to do in Denver when you're native: Adams Mystery Playhouse

After last week's trip down memory lane for the thirtieth anniversary of the 16th Street Mall, I started to think about all of the places around this city that I've never visited. Since I'm a Colorado native, I've find it easy to all but ignore attractions that seem to be targeted to visitors and tr ... More >>

Debate 2012: Fifty reasons debate visitors should wish they live in Denver

The first presidential debate at the University of Denver is mere hours away, and media and visitors are flooding into town for the big event. But there are plenty of reasons Denver should be in the spotlight the other 364 days per year. Fifty, at least. Which is why we've brushed off, spruced up ... More >>

Aloft's JP Krause on why Casa Bonita rules

JP Krause Aloft Broomfield 8300 Arista Place, Broomfield 303-635-2000 www.aloftbroomfielddenver.com This is part one of my interview with JP Krause, exec chef of Aloft Broomfield. Part two of our interview will run in this space tomorrow. "Right. My name. It's John Patrick, but ever since high ... More >>

Blue state v. red state: Which Colorado do you live in?

Colorado is a key swing state in the upcoming presidential election. In polls, Colorado looks like a toss-up between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, with leads shifting back and forth by the day -- and which way the vote ultimately goes could decide the national outcome. By the numbers, though, this s ... More >>

John Kessler warns our new critic about 7/Eleven hot dogs

In advance of Gretchen Kurtz's debut next week as the new Cafe critic, we asked some of our previous restaurant reviewers to weigh in -- and given their jobs, we do mean weigh in -- with advice for our new newest critic. Kyle Wagner, our reviewer for close to a decade who's now the travel editor at ... More >>

John Elway caught The Book of Mormon...on Broadway

John Elway has plenty of fans. But two of them could soon rival Number 7 on the Colorado celebrity scale. When they met with the local press to discuss The Book of Mormon , creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said that if there was anyone they wanted to see the show, it was John Elway.

Modern Romance

Denver County Fair: Viva Denver Gets Loco on Sunday

The second annual Denver County Fair is already under way, and in honor of the fact that one-third of Denver County's population is Latino, one-third of this year's fair will be Latino. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, the fair will be devoted to Viva Denver, a celebration of Latino culture. The fun ... More >>

Fifty latest reasons Colorado is the best state in the country

Colorado is having a tough time. The ramifications of widespread wildfires and the Aurora theater shooting are still coming into focus, and many questions won't be answered for months. But we're not going anywhere. In Westword's annual attempt to chronicle on paper -- to count the ways, if you will ... More >>

Book of Mormon's Matt Stone and Trey Parker: Not the time to joke about Aurora shooting

It's been a tough few months for Colorado, and homestate heroes Matt Stone and Trey Parker know it. On Tuesday, the South Park creators talked to press at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House about their latest success, the hugely popular and distinctly brazen comic musical The Book of Mormon, which opens ... More >>

10 things to do for $10 this weekend, July 27-29, 2012

Down to your last few dollars before rent is due next week? Don't worry about it. You can still have fun without forking over a lot of cash. From a Dragon Boat Festival to movies in the park, this town will be full of things to do for under $10. And as always, if you're a responsible planner and can ... More >>

Wheels Down

Dive into T.J. Miller's "Denver" video!

When we interviewed hometown-boy-gone-big T.J. Miller last week, he'd just gotten back to Beverly Hills and was preparing for a quick trip to Denver to debut his new Nix Bros. collaboration: the "Denver" video that premiered at Film on the Rocks Tuesday. After that, Miller headed straight to London ... More >>

Ten new reasons to buy your ticket to the Denver County Fair now

If last year's inaugural Denver County Fair was a grand experiment, this year's "is going to blow the first one out of the water on all counts!" says DCF maestra Dana Cain. That's because Cain's mental notepad was a cover-to-cover frenzy of new ideas and lessons learned by the time the 2011 event wa ... More >>

Cafe Society's top ten posts of 2012...so far

Best burgers, best pizzas, best new restaurants (and best restaurant patios), plus a gallery of miniature football stadiums made of meat, a guide on how to survive Casa Bonita and a few ranty lists on what servers (or diners) do to piss off each other in restaurants. Yes, it's our top ten, most-read ... More >>

Gustavo Arellano on Tim Tebow, Tom Tancredo and the glories of Chubby's Mexican hamburger

"Denver has the most gabacho gabachos in the United States," Gustavo Arellano, author of Ask a Mexican, proclaimed yesterday, name-checking Tim Tebow (briefly), John Elway and Tom Tancredo, with whom he'd debated immigration eighteen months ago on the same Su Teatro stage.

Gustavo Arellano on Chubby's, Tom Tancredo and Den-Mex

Gustavo Arellano, author of Ask a Mexican, returned to the Su Teatro stage last night, where eighteen months ago he'd discussed immigration with Tom Tancredo. Before that debate, Tancredo and Arellano had met across the street for dinner at El Noa Noa. And no matter how he feels about Mexicans, "Tan ... More >>

Reader: Squeaky Bean videos have viewers hungering for more

A year after it abruptly closed its original location in Highland, Squeaky Bean will bloom again next month at 1500 Wynkoop Street. And thanks to a series of videos with owner Johnny Ballen, you can get a taste of what's to come: a Casa Bonita for adults, he promises. "Opening a restaurant can be a ... More >>

Photos: Top ten "You know you're from Colorado when..." punchlines

Photos: Top ten "You know you're from Colorado when..." punchlines It's the time of year when people from all over the country begin flooding into our fair state -- because if you lived somewhere else, you'd want to come here, too. But how to tell the locals from the pretenders? We stumbled on a v ... More >>

Video: Johnny Ballen, head bean of the Squeaky Bean, gives us a sneak peek of the new space

For those of you who have been begging for an update on the re-sprouting of the Squeaky Bean -- and there are a lot of you -- we've got that and more, thanks, in part, to quirky king bean Johnny Ballen, who, we now know, may have been a used car salesman in a previous life. For the past few weeks, ... More >>

Which Denver restaurant would make the best use of 40 pounds of cherries from Washington?

Which Denver restaurant would make the best use of forty pounds of cherries from Washington? A PR firm from that state is looking for an iconic restaurant deserving of the fruit...and coming up with the right location is the pits. Should it be the Cherry Cricket, for its name alone?

Ten Mexican fast-food guilty pleasures

Mexican fare from fast-food chains usually isn't authentic, healthy or even pretty, but it's irresistible. And we all indulge from time to time -- hitting the window at Taco Bell at 2 a.m. after a night of mainlining vodka gimlets; finding any excuse to grab a sunflower-seed-stuffed veggie burrito a ... More >>

Review: Mojo Nixon at Lion's Lair, 4/14/12

MOJO NIXON @ LION'S LAIR | 4/14/12 "Rick Santorum can suck my dick!" was the chorus Mojo Nixon got the crowd to chant as a line in an extended version of "You Can't Kill Me." But everything was an extended version out of an eleven song set. With just his Guild electric and more playfully rambunctio ... More >>

Peyton Manning: Here are the best 18 things you need to know about Denver

Number 18, you're not in Indiana anymore. You may be Denver's most famous newcomer, but you're a newcomer, nonetheless -- and there are certain things that every newcomer needs to know. Over the last 28 years, the Best of Denver has celebrated what makes this city special -- and in advance of the Be ... More >>

Everything I know about real life I learned from John Waters

I am the product of weird parents. Okay, "weird" probably isn't the best word, considering it can describe everything from hairstyles to movies to that guy on the bus who always smells like day-old Whopper Jr.'s and mothballs. But my parents were definitely weirdos. My dad made Tang and Spam on Su ... More >>

Chris Brown seagull attack reimagined (ten images)

Getting mounted by the Denver International Airport demon horse, known as "Mustang."Fresh off his Grammy win for best R&B album and dropping a pair of remixes with Rihanna, Chris Brown was attacked by seagulls Sunday while on vacation in Miami. The Daily Mail (of course) has a pretty hilarious phot ... More >>

Reader: The Book of Mormon is going to be the hottest ticket this summer...if you're a scalper

Jumping for joy over The Book of Mormon tickets.​People are still comparing notes on how long they tried to log on to buy tickets for The Book of Mormon when they were available for a few brief hours on Sunday, January 22. Those who gave up on technology and simply went to the ticket windows a ... More >>

Ten things to do for $10 this weekend, January 20-22, 2012

Get out there this weekend.​So by now you've given up on your New Year's resolutions, right? Of course you have. It's time to stop going to the gym on a Friday night, you tourist, and get back to having fun. There's plenty going on this weekend, whether you want to watch dudes wrestle in a bar ... More >>

Reader: Can't wait to return to Colorado's most famous restaurant...Casa Bonita!

On Friday, the 300 (or so) restaurants participating in Denver Restaurant Week will be posting their $52.80 (for two) menus for the two-week eating orgy that starts on February 25; we're offering $52.80 to both the diner and the restaurant employee who offer the best Denver Restaurant Week survival ... More >>

Top ten Cafe Society posts of 2011

Including this post, the total number of posts on Cafe Society in 2011 was 3,241. That's a lot of bloggering for a local restaurant scene blog. And who has time to go through all of them? Certainly not you. Which is why we've tallied up the top ten posts -- judging from traffic, at least -- on Caf ... More >>

Winter Heat

Visit Denver fills your bucket list with lots of beer...and more suds at Smiley's

Lights for your list.​Good news! The world is not going to end on December 21, 2012. That's the word from Dawn Engle, co-producer of 2012: The True Mayan Prophecy, which airs tonight on Colorado Public Television. But just in case she's wrong, we asked some state leaders for their can't-miss C ... More >>

Amos Watts, exec chef of Jax-Denver, on Casa Bonita, English peas and cheese

Amos Watts Jax Fish House Denver 1539 17th Street 303-292-5767 www.jaxfishhousedenver.com The French Laundry, Thomas Keller's culinary temple in Napa, gets plenty of accolades, but Cyrus, a petite restaurant in the artsy Sonoma town of Healdsburg, is even better, insists its legion of junkies. And ... More >>

Things to do in Denver when you're talking like a pirate

A Flickr photo.​Ahoy, mateys! In case ye landlubbers and scalawags are unaware, today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Founded in 1995 by Oregonians John Baur and Mark Summers -- also known as Ol' Chumbucket and Cap'n Slappy, respectively -- the parodic holiday has grown into something ... More >>

Round two with Brad Arguello, exec chef of the Uber Sausage

Lori Midson​This is part two of my interview with Brad Arguello, exec chef of the Uber Sausage. Part one of my chat with Arguello ran in this space yesterday. Brad Arguello The Uber Sausage 2730 East Colfax Avenue 303-862-7894 www.theubersausage.com What you'd like to see more of in Denver/B ... More >>

Goodbye Westword, hello Humor Code: I'm off on a global search for what makes things funny

​After five years at Westword, I'm bidding you all adieu (at least for now). I'm taking a leave to work on the Humor Code, a book project in which I travel around the world with a humor professor in search of what makes things funny. Crazy? Yes. Foolhardy? Possibly. A damn good time? Definitel ... More >>

IKEA Centennial: Fear and loathing and meatballs at the megastore's press preview

IKEA: So big is has its own gravity.​Unless you've been living under a poorly-designed rock for months, you know that IKEA Centennial opens on July 27, at which point everyone within a four-state area will charge through its doors, frothing at the mouth for low-priced, assembly-required home d ... More >>

Sake to Me

What's the buzz on Denver's sake lounges?

Chile Weather

Hacienda Colorado makes you feel right at home.

Dive! Dive!

Cheap entertainment is Casa Bonita's one small pleasure.

Mouthing Off

Mouthing Off