Subject: Joe Vostrejs

• Billy's Inn Is Coming Back!

  June 21, 2008

• Troy Guard: cottage cheese pimp, general of the TAG army

  August 15, 2008

• North Star space snapped up by Larimer Square gang

  September 9, 2008

• Tocabe liquor license hearing today

  Tocabe: An American Indian Eatery has been open less than two weeks, but the sleek restaurant at 5356 East 44th Avenue has already gained a loyal following with its native American twist on fast-casual food. And that following could grow -- fast-- if the liquor-license hearing scheduled for 9 a.m. today at the Wellington E. Webb building goes well. Tocabe is across the street from Billy's Inn, the very updated roadhouse that reopened earlier this year, but the competition shoul

  December 29, 2008

• Back in business: Sean Kelly

  Rumors were rampant that the recently vacated North Star Brewery space at 3200 Tejon Street had already been snapped up by Joe Vostrejs, Jeff Hermanson and Rod Wagner -- the Larimer Square gang, in part, and the crew most recently behind the resurrection of Billy's Inn, at 4403 Lowell Boulevard. So late last week, I put in a call to Vostrejs, who was more than a little surprised to hear from me. "Man, the rumor mill must be going full-tilt," he said, stammering a little. "That's not supposed to

  January 9, 2009

• Bite Me

  January 23, 2003

• What's in a name? Steak and bar, but not steak hut

  Lori Midson Until yesterday, I hadn't spoken to Sean Kelly in a long time -- not since he shuttered Somethin' Else (now Fruition) in 2006. Not since he hooked up with the Little Pub Company, whose fourteen pubs, bars, taverns, saloons and (sort-of) restaurants are strewn all over the city. And not since he left the Little Pub empire, took some time off and then joined the three musketeers -- Rod Wagner, Joe Vostrejs and Jeff Hermanson -- the guys who run Larimer Square, brought Billy's Inn, at

  April 1, 2009

• Is a chicken wing without chicken even a wing?

  January 15, 2009

• The Westword.com blog shortcut, April 15 edition

  Photo by Eric GruneisenCobra Starship's Gabe Saporta has some issues. I'll try not to make this too taxing. Today in Backbeat Online: • Last Night: Fall Out Boy at the Fillmore. • Last Night: Mastodon at the Fox Theatre. • DJ Vajra impresses NAMM crowd with his turntable magic. • Update: Hot IQs calling it a day. • The Denver Boot: Voices Underwater -- 09.29.05. • Guest DJ with DJ MU$A at the Coral Room. • Free Tauntaun show Saturday at Wax Trax for Record Store Day. • Record S

  April 15, 2009

• The earls of sandwich

  September 11, 2008

• Jonesing

  New Life Church has gotten a makeover since Ted Haggard left — as Mike Jones reports from the inside.

  July 12, 2007

• Ground Zero

  Bistro Vendome gets a new chef.

  August 24, 2006

• Oyster Barred

  A taste for revenge.

  June 15, 2006

• Beyond Borders

  The Chen Brothers offer a pan-Asian experience at Blue Moon.

  October 13, 2005

• Bite Me

  Birth Pains

  July 14, 2005

• Bite Me

  Red Alert

  November 25, 2004

• Bite Me

  A Square Deal

  May 6, 2004

• Joe Vostrejs knows fry bread

  A regular at the old Billy's InnLong after my review of Tocabe was safely in the can, I was still dreaming about fry bread.  I was also eating fry bread -- having made at least three post-review visits to Tocabe's home at 44th and Lowell just to "check my facts." One that almost slipped by me? That one of the fellas responsible for putting Tocabe on the map is Joe Vostrejs -- a man generally associated with the goings-on around Larimer Square, but also a developer of other addresses around

  April 15, 2009

• Dining blind at Cracovia

  Lester and Maria Rodzen offer a taste of Poland at Cracovia.Bigos. Flaki. Czerwony barszcz, with or without uszka. Kapusniak. Pyzy, placek and kiszka. I'm pretty good with languages, particularly on my favorite conversational topics of food, kitchens and cooks. My pronunciation might be embarrassingly bad, but I can say "please," ask after individual ingredients, order, appreciate and offer thanks with a modicum of confidence in German, Russian, French and Vietnamese. In Spanish, I can do a

  May 5, 2009

• Joe Vostrejs and his army are out to conquer Denver

  May 7, 2009

• Steak Bar putting down stakes in Highland

  Selling the sizzle in northwest Denver When Jason Sheehan checked in with Joe Vostrejs a couple of weeks ago, he had high hopes that the LoHi Steak Bar that's moving into 3200 Tejon Street -- the old home of North Star Brewery -- would be open in June. He just didn't know when in June. "We have all the hard stuff out of the way," said Vostrejs, who's bringing Sean Kelly in as chef and partner on the project. Hard stuff like the plumbing, the electric, the inspections. The rest, he said, is just

  May 15, 2009

• Banner day for Tocabe

  I had lunch plans that were made weeks ago.  I had a time and a date, a big group of friends, a table waiting out on the patio.  What I didn't have?  Any idea that today was the day the Denver Post was going to drop the love on my new favorite north Denver American Indian fry- bread outfit: Tocabe. But it did.  And while the piece by Electa Draper that graced the cover of today's Post food section wasn't exactly a review (because seriously, who writes those things a

  May 20, 2009

• Larimer Square is a garden of eatin'

  June 11, 2009

• Say hello to two new debuts: LoHi SteakBar and Icehouse Tavern

  What will you eat at LoHi SteakBar? We've just gotten word that LoHi SteakBar, the new restaurant spearheaded by Joe Vostrejs and chef-partner Sean Kelly, is opening tomorrow evening at 6 p.m. in the former home of North Star Brewery at 3200 Tejon Street, which is exactly seven hours (that would be 11 a.m.) after James Mazzio unlocks the doors to the Ice House Tavern at 1801 Wynkoop Street, a mere three days after Mazzio's second projected opening date of June 22nd. Mazzio had originally hoped

  June 24, 2009

• Ginger Gimlet at LoHi SteakBar

  July 2, 2009

• Jason Sheehan is ready to face his critics

  July 2, 2009

• Will the makeover of Writer Square be for the better or the worse?

  August 13, 2009

• The Larimer Square guys and Sean Kelly get a pizza the action

  Lori MidsonThe future home a New York-style pizza joint from the Larimer Square gang and Sean Kelly​Sometime in December, Jeff Hermanson, Joe Vostrejs and Rod Wagner will add a new pizza bar to their portfolio of successful restaurants that already includes Billy's Inn, LoHi Steakbar and pretty much every chow house on Larimer Square. Their newest place, whose name is yet to be determined, will take over the former 3 Sons restaurant, which closed its location at 2915 West 44th Avenue in Ap

  August 24, 2009

• Chef and Tell: Troy Guard from TAG

  ​"You're the first person who's asked for hot sauce since I opened," says Troy Guard. The owner and executive chef of TAG, a three-month-old restaurant in Larimer Square, isn't quite scolding me, but he's made it perfectly clear that his steak tacos, a plate of which sits in front of me, don't need no stinkin' hot sauce. "The steak's already been marinated in habanero and chipotle," he tells me. I take a bite and discover that he's absolutely right. But even if he weren't, who am I to argu

  August 26, 2009

• A conversation with Troy Guard of TAG

  August 27, 2009

• Planning Board votes down controversial Writer Square sign plan at impassioned hearing

  Len EdgerlyOpponents of the Writer Square sign plan use an eight-by-12-foot sheet to demonstrate the size of the proposed video billboard.​The Writer Square pedestrian shopping center downtown may be subtle, quiet and low-key, but the passions the location inspires are anything but. Denver's Planning Board learned that fact firsthand last night when it considered a controversial new sign plan for the property -- a proposal board members decided to vote down after three hours of dramatic te

  September 3, 2009

• Sean Kelly finds a home at the LoHi SteakBar

  September 24, 2009