Johnny Ballen, owner of The Squeaky Bean, which opens Monday morning at 3301 Tejon Street in the former Mondo Cafe space, finds it amusing that everyone seems to think his new spot is a java joint. “I’m having fun with all the guesswork,” he told me yesterday over Squeaky spritzes,…
Early last month, I told you that Max Mackissock, the former exec chef at Vita who’d most recently been putting time in at Cafe Options, had just landed the top job at Primebar, the soon-to-be hot spot at 1515 Arapahoe Street, in the former Palomino space, that’s previewing its menu…
As I reported here last week, Park Burger, this week’s obsession for us Westword food freaks, was skedded to open last Friday, at precisely 5 p.m., but any of you who attached your watch to your eyeballs so that you could be first in line now knows that 5 p.m…
Drove by the Denver Pizza Company last night, the pie palace at 309 West 11th Avenue reputedly owned by Mark Huebner, a self-described “pizza entrepreneur” and our homeboy contestant on The Bachelorette, whose season premiere aired last night on ABC. (Huebner will be around for the next prickly rose ceremony,…
During a weekend scouting mission for new restaurants, I’m pretty sure I scared the shit out of Andy Koncsik. He’s the guy who, along with his wife, Estela, is opening La Brisa Mexican Restaurant in the former Cafe Etoile space at 375 South Pearl Street. And I don’t blame him…
Sultry cocktails, social food and a whole gaggle of really sociable Denver chefs, many of them still wired from a recent cooking stint at the James Beard House in New York, made for one helluva fun Sunday preview night at TAG, Troy Guard’s new restaurant at 1441 Larimer Street that…
Here it is, halfway through the month of May, and we nearly forgot to tell you: May is National Hamburger Month. That’s right, the hamburger, and its sexier sibling, the cheeseburger, get an entire month devoted to their all-American virtues. Coincidentally, May also marks the eleventh anniversary of CityGrille, the…
Okay, so even though the name — Highland Micro-Market — clearly refers to a market on a miniature scale, I laughed out loud when I pulled up to the itsy-bitsy-teenie-weenie patio at Generous Servings Cooking Classes and Cafe, the site of the new Highland Micro-Market, or MiMa, which debuted yesterday…
Chefs and restaurateurs in New York City (Jeffrey Chodorow, in particular) are likely breathing a collective sigh of relief at news that Frank Bruni, restaurant critic at the New York Times, is kicking his food beat to the curb to pimp his new memoir, Born Round: the Secret History of…
I haven’t admitted this to a lot of people, but I recently returned from hanging with Mickey and the gang at Disneyland, which actually went better than i’d imagined it would. Save for the restaurants, which sucked, except for In-N-Out Burger, which simply sucks in prey, including my nine-year-old son…
I skid my brakes to a halt whenever I see a new restaurant or restaurant sign (which likely explains why I get flipped the bird more often than just about anyone I know). But otherwise I’d miss things, like the huge “Open Soon” banner hanging from the former Oliveto Cucina…
The second outpost of Mona’s, the breakfast and lunch joint at 141 South Broadway whose corned beef hash generated a Westword Best of Denver award, has expanded its hours to include dinner and carousing. That makes two late-night neighborhood spots for Garen and Linda Austin, the husband-and-wife team who recently…
For the past several weeks, I’ve been poking around Park Burger, the new burger barn at 1890 South Pearl Street that’s the brain kid of Jean-Philippe Failyau, Frank Bonanno’s go-to guy at Osteria Marco in Larimer Square. Last month, Tyler Nemkov reported that Park Burger’s opening had been delayed, which…
If you were anywhere near me at yesterday’s Rocky Mountain Regional Foodservice and Restaurant Exposition trade show at the Denver Merchandise Mart, I sincerely apologize. I was the really strange and uncouth girl with the camera, the one stroking the goat cheese, feeling up the soppresetta, flirting with a pig…
Gelato alert: While cruising around Cap Hill last night in search of food — which I got in the form of a real deal slice of New York-style pizza from the excruciatingly surly crew at Benny Blanco’s Slice of the Bronx, at 616 East 13th Avenue — I saw a…
Just got off the phone with Ray Gross, who handles investor relations for Ruth’s Chris Steak House — a chain that, until yesterday, had a Denver outpost at 1445 Market Street. “Basically, Marcel Taylor, the franchisee of the Denver location, closed it for personal reasons,” explained Gross, adding that Taylor…
The Uptown ‘hood has no shortage of restaurants, but Olivéa, the new food temple from John Broening, Yasmin Lozada-Hisson, Keith Arnold and Stephanie Bonin (the foursome behind Duo), located at 719 East 17th Avenue in the former Aix space, could be just what the neighborhood’s been waiting for: an upbeat,…
Just got off the phone with a gobsmacked Jack Martinez, the patriarch behind Jack-n-Grill, the family-owned New Mexican joint at 2524 Federal Boulevard whose gut-busting seven-pound burrito, recently featured on the Travel Channel’s Man v. Food, was apparently a prelude to bigger and better things to come–a colossal shout out…
In the midst of all this swine flu hysteria, there’s just one thing to do: Eat more pork! The H1N1 influenza outbreak is not transmitted in any way, shape or form by anything with a snout, curly tail or hooves, as Jason Sheehan reported last week. And if you don’t…
See photos from the event at westword.com/slideshow. Last night, nearly 500 foodophiles packed the ballroom at Congregation Emanuel to lend their support for the fifth annual Women Cook!, Dining for a Difference, the largest silent auction and fundraiser of the year for Work Options for Women, a non-profit that offers…
It hasn’t exactly been all spring flowers for Justin Cucci, the owner of Root Down. Despite snatching a Best of Denver award for its unassailable contemporary cocktail roster (served by a cadre of the town’s coolest bartenders), Jason Sheehan skewered the joint in a review published in early April, and…
Since I couldn’t get a pho-kin takeout menu from the hostess at Pho on 6th — “Sorry, we don’t have any,” she mumbled — I had no choice but to steal borrow a freshly laminated real menu, which I swiped off the bar (hey, at least I’m honest about my…
