Audio By Carbonatix
We love our neighborhoods and we love to eat: Those are Denver trademarks worth celebrating, and no celebration does it more succinctly than the annual Uptown Sampler, which has been serving up delicious tastes from restaurants all around the Uptown district for nearly 25 years. Along the way, it’s gotten sleeker and more streamlined, but the basic premise is still the same: Participants hop on buses to ride from eatery to eatery, enjoying gourmet food samples, wine tasting, drink specials and entertainment along the way. It’s a foodie lark, to be sure, and it’s no doubt lasted so long because it’s been so well run by neighborhood boosters Paul Weiss and, until this year, his late wife, Carla Madison.
“Carla and I took it over when it was failing, because she insisted that it held great potential for the community,” Weiss explains. “As we went along, we outlasted the Uptown on the Hill neighborhood association; when it failed a few years ago, I thought it would be appropriate to let the event go, too. But my wife insisted we continue doing it, because of its value to the community and to the individual businesses.” And apparently, she was right. “When this first started, Uptown was not that popular of a destination neighborhood,” he explains. “But to see 300 to 600 people walking down 17th Avenue on a beautiful fall evening, that’s a wonderful thing.”
To follow the noshin’ trail, begin at the Tavern Uptown, Hamburger Mary’s, Strings, Las Margaritas or the Next Door Lounge; there are around twenty destinations in the area bordered by East Colfax and 20th avenues and between York and Lincoln streets. Admission is $20 in advance (available at the website through September 13, at King Soopers stores or at Above the Rim Wine Shop, 1936 Pennsylvania Street) or $25 at the door; go to www.uptownonthehill.org to register or call 720-217-5241 for more information.
Tue., Sept. 20, 5 p.m., 2011
