Is brunch Denver’s official meal? Every weekend morning, you can find lines outside of this city’s most popular brunch spots — but as Lauren Monitz reported yesterday, so far the crowds haven’t discovered the brunch at Leña, even though this brunch deserves to be discovered. Ryan agrees: Lena has the…

Yesterday was Ryan Fletter’s birthday. It was also the day he finally got to tell his mother that he’d bought Barolo Grill, after six months of working out the details of a deal that Barolo’s founder, Blair Taylor, had suggested to his longtime employee. Yesterday, Fletter and Taylor also share…

All aboard for destination eating at Union Station. When the development partners started planning what to put inside the renovated station, they envisioned a place frequented not just by visitors, but by locals. And they succeeded: Union Station has become a go-to spot for Denver diners, and we named it…

Mark Antonation has been eating at Denver soul-food restaurants all through May for his latest round of Ethniche. His most recent stop was at Cora Faye’s Cafe, a decade-old spot on Colorado Boulevard that earned a visit from Guy Fieri. Owner Priscilla Smith is almost as much a draw as the…

It’s time to say so long to Sullivan’s Steakhouse. When this eatery, which is owned by the Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group, opened at 1745 Wazee Street back in 1999, the Westword office was right across 18th Street, and we frequently found ourselves at one of the high-tops in the boxing-themed…

El Rancho is making another comeback — this time as a brewpub. The iconic restaurant in the foothills got its start as a log cabin eatery in 1947; new owners took it over in the ’50s, and expanded it into a major restaurant and conference center. In the ’60s, it…

This past rainy weekend, North County — the Southern California-inspired restaurant that opened late last year in Lowry, a part of town hungry for eating options — was packed with people eager to get out of the wet weather and into some potent margaritas. Gretchen Kurtz reviewed North County last week, and…

The neon clown that once glowed over I-25 from the roof of Pagliacci’s is scheduled to be reinstalled today inside Lumina, the massive project that was built on the site of the longtime Italian restaurant. The Pagliacci’s clown was a colorful landmark in northwest Denver — which has been losing…

Last week Gretchen Kurtz reviewed Lo Stella Ristorante, and the responses have been fast and furious —  largely furious, in the case of Lo Stella owner Alessandro Polo. Later today, we’re scheduled to change our commenting system — we’re moving to fulltime Facebook — and at that point, all previous…

After 66 years in business, Pagliacci’s served its last plate of spaghetti in August 2012 — and last week, Lumina held an open house so that people could see the distinctive retail/residential project that replaced the longtime Italian restaurant, in the process earning the Best Attempt to Stand Out in…

Brunch may be this city’s favorite meal, and last week Lauren Monitz served up our updated list of the Ten Best Brunches in Denver. But since brunch may be this city’s favorite meal, diners all have their favorite spots — some of which didn’t make the cut. Lucile’s, for example: “Blasphemy,”…

Suddenly there are signs of life at El Rancho, the restaurant/conference center with its own exit off I-70. For the last few weeks, crews have been working inside, and a sign in one window of the 500-seat space promises “Fall 2015.” El Rancho got its start in 1947, when the…

One bonus to the hideous traffic in town: While you’re stuck in yet another jam, you have plenty of time to spot all the new businesses popping up in booming Denver. But even with the boom, Boulevard Burger & Tap went bust, and its space at 727 Colorado Boulevard is…

Attorney Sana Hamelin had a dream: to open a cat cafe, one of the first in the country. She found the purrfect spot at 3929 Tennyson Street, and late last year opened the Denver Cat Company, which immediately started attracting fans of coffee and kitties. And those fans came out…

Another chapter in Denver’s northwest side story ended when Elitch Lanes closed last night, after a weekend-long goodbye. “If you’ve been around northwest Denver, you know: The people who come in here are so much nicer than the average person,” owner Cal Eichinger had told us back in December, when he…

Gretchen Kurtz did not have great experiences at Lo Stella Ristorante, which last fall moved into a space in the Golden Triangle that has swallowed up several other restaurants. And as she writes in her review this week, Kurtz found several things hard to swallow at Lo Stella, including the fact…

Mark Antonation is eating at soul-food restaurants for this month’s Ethniche, and his travels recently took him to Kirk’s Soul Kitchen in Aurora, where the restaurant occupies the former home of a payday loan. And given the setting, Kirk’s serves up some unusual stories along with authentic soul food. Says Joshua:…

Steve Horner, go back to your corner. Eight years ago, members of this city’s bar/restaurant industry felt like they were being held hostage by Steve Horner. The onetime radio personality/self-published author had filed one of the first major claims that ladies’ nights were discriminatory in his home state of Minnesota,…