The Great American Bubbles & French Fries Festival Is This Saturday

For 42 years, the Great American Beer Festival has been one of Denver’s most beloved autumn events, drawing brewers and beer lovers from around the world. But tearing through pretzels and tossing back two-ounce pours can test your tastebuds, not to mention your liver. What better way to counter carbs and alcohol than with…champagne and French fries?!

Those “Let’s sober up with champagne” sessions were the impetus for the creation of the Great American Bubbles & French Fries Festival. The event will celebrate its tenth anniversary this Saturday, October 12, at Champagne Tiger, which Chris Donato recently opened in the former Tom’s Diner space on East Colfax. “Me and my husband and our friends would go to GABF’s Saturday morning session, then head to a nearby restaurant where the champagne was…fine,” Donato recalls. “And the French fries were…all right. My husband got tired of hearing me complain, and suggested I do something on my own.”

That “something” was a 2014 gathering for twenty in a friend’s backyard that doubled as the first of Donato’s Champagne Tiger pop-up series. The festival, which has been held at various locations over the years, including Major Tom and the Post, now has a new home. “This will be the first year that we’re bringing it in-house, which is really, really exciting,” Donato notes.

For the extremely cheeky price of only $69, festival-goers will feast on a carby cornucopia of fries and sauces, key bumps of tasty caviar, and ninety minutes of unlimited Grower Champagnes poured by a charming assortment of drag queens. “That’s wine at a restaurant that would be $30 a glass,” says Donato. “We’re just free-pouring as much as you want.”

Besides the bodacious bubbles, the GABFFF will offer thirteen varieties of tasty fries including shoestring, sweet potato, waffle, tots, potato chips and the highly coveted sidewinders. “They’re mostly seen in the Midwest,” Donato notes. “It’s like this large corkscrew potato – fried deliciousness.”

The sidewinders and their crispy cohorts will be accompanied by a rainbow of dipping sauces. There will be ketchup, of course. But along with that, French fry aficionados can dip into garlic confit aioli, Green Goddess dressing, housemade date barbecue sauce and spicy ranch. More unique spud slathers are a caviar beurre blanc and Champagne Tiger’s signature Tiger Sauce. But the favorite sauce may well come from a fast food restaurant just down Colfax. “Dipping fries in a Wendy’s Chocolate Frosty is just delicious,” laughs Donato. “Sweet and salty.” There’ll also be a kilo of caviar, an elaborate tiger ice sculpture, and a bevy of beautiful drag queens keeping the flutes full.

“It’s not an event, it’s the event of the year for me and my girlfriends,” says blogger and Bites With Bre influencer Bre Phippen. “I’ve been going since 2021, except once when I had to attend a wedding in Italy. It’s a reason to get all the girls together and dress up. Last year we had twelve, so we got a limo! It always amps up, and I’m really excited to see what it will be like this year in their new home.”

It’s that sense of joyous celebration that fuels Donato’s vision for the new venture. “The vibe is always so great because it’s a really nice event…but it’s a very silly event at the same time, which is Champagne Tiger’s M.O. – nice things in a joyful, fun, celebratory way. We’re not a serious place,” he concludes. “But we take food and beverages very seriously. And it’s always great.”

Champagne Tiger is located at 601 East Colfax Avenue. Reservations for the Great American Bubbles and French Fry Festival from 3 to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 12, are available via Tock. For more information, visit champagnetiger.com or follow it on Instagram @thegabfff.