A Whole New World

During his 27 years working on the Uptown Sampler restaurant crawl (including fourteen as event director), Paul Weiss has seen Denver’s Uptown neighborhood blossom, becoming a real community instead of a transient wasteland. “When I first started doing this, Uptown was not a desirable neighborhood. No one walked there, not even for a block, and there were only about eleven restaurants. I had to hire buses to shuttle people from block to block, and I had to hire off-duty police because people didn’t think it was safe to walk around,” Weiss recalls. “So what really made me jump up and down and twirl around was when people started walking. I looked out one year, and I saw four, five hundred people walking down 17th Avenue at dusk, and it gave me goosebumps. I said, ‘This neighborhood is not a place that people fear any longer.’”

These days, Uptown is a whole different place, and it’s jumping with great places to eat. To celebrate its 27 years, the 2014 Uptown Sampler will feature bites from 27 restaurants tonight between 5 and 8:30 p.m. Start sampling at any one of these five eateries along the district’s restaurant row: the Tavern Uptown, 538 East 17th; Argyll Whiskey Beer, 1035 East 17th; The District, 1320 East 17th; Ace Eat Serve, 501 East 17th; or Tony Ps, 777 East 17th. Tickets are $20 online in advance or $25 dollars at the door; for a map and more information, visit uptownonthehill.org.

Tue., Sept. 16, 5-8:30 p.m., 2014