All the rain in Spain couldn’t have dampened the spirits at last night’s Hot Rocks Griller Challenge at Elway’s Cherry Creek (2500 East First Avenue), a benefit for the Denver Heath Foundation that brought together eleven Denver chefs, chaperoned by Denver Bronco cheerleaders, who coerced and sweet-talked patrons into “voting”…
Okay, so what’s better than a new pho restaurant opening in town? A new pho restaurant that also serves frozen yogurt! Seriously, how can you not be excited by that? It’s so weird, so bizarrely, wrongly right, that I know you just can’t wait to get there yourself. But if…
Summertime is smoothie season, and these gems beckoned to us from a dusty Big Lots shelf, hinting at a world of cool refreshment. Okay, so we’re not quite naive enough to believe that some off-flavor Skittles could possibly offer us much more than a lurking sense of disappointment; even so,…
Yes, mom-and-pop places are suffering in today’s economy — but so are strip clubs! According to a story by former Denver Post writer Kris Hudson in today’s Wall Street Journal, the country’s two publicly traded strip-club chains have been hit hard by the recession, and are now “catering to a…
Eating 20 hot dogs (with buns) in under 12 minutes used to be such a feat that competitive eaters coined the phrase “doing the deuce” for the achievement. But that was before winning totals in the annual July 4th Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Contest rocketed past 30, shot into the…
See a slideshow from the event at westword.com/slideshow. Last night’s Hot Rocks Griller Challenge at Elway’s in Cherry Creek was hot (if a bit damp). Some of Denver’s most talented chefs grilled up a storm, creating sliders for a cause (the event benefited the Denver Health Foundation). Come back here…
This just in: The Icehouse Tavern at 1801 Wynkoop Street will be opening June 22, according to James Mazzio, the award-winning chef who ran the kitchen at the space’s previous incarnation, Via, and who’s taken a very active role in its transformation into the Icehouse Tavern.It’s still owned by the…
I thought I saw a vision of Jesus in my latte, but it was actually the guy who’s bigger than Jesus, John Lennon. In this video, local latte artist Michael Keen of Studio 6 Coffee in the Santa Fe Arts District shows how to do one of his many foamy…
Hey, meatheads! Beginning today and continuing through Sunday, June 14, Steven Raichlen — grilling and barbecue big shot, cookbook author (28 and counting), former Food Network host and current PBS television mouthpiece — brings his big-man-on-campus barbecue prowess to the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs for BBQ University, a fired-up,…
This week’s review of Rioja served a couple of purposes. One, it cleared up a bothersome bit of karmic dead weight. Two, it gave me a chance to see how a strong-starting restaurant with a solid crew and a talented chef can get so much better in four years, when…
I’m sitting at Rioja on a Monday night. A full book Monday night — rare for the best restaurants in the best of times, bordering on miraculous for this day and age, this city. I have one of the weird tables: a lonely deuce stuck between two four-tops, sitting, essentially,…
Eighty-two year-old JoAnn Turner, who bought the Rustic Tavern (5126 West 29th Avenue) with her husband 52 years ago and continues to oversee its daily operations, is showing me her photo albums. There’s so-and-so: His dog got hit by a car and we buried it out back. There’s Uncle Fred:…
I gave Rioja four years before going back (in a professional capacity) and finally finding the meal I’d always wanted to have there. Richard Sandoval opened Tamayo, his “modern Mexican” restaurant, at the corner of Larimer and 14th streets in 2001. My predecessor, Kyle Wagner, reviewed it that same year…
The sandwich: Hawaiian Express What’s on it: Ham, pineapple ring, cheddar, lettuce, tomato and mayo on choice of bread Where to get it: Katherine’s French Bakery, Café and Catering (728 South University Boulevard, 303-282-5888) How much: $7.95 If you don’t do it Hawaiian style, you’ve never done it Hawaiian style,…
All you civilians are going to have to wait until Monday, June 15, to witness the unveiling of the state’s newest Whole Foods Market, the nineteenth in the Rocky Mountain region, and one of the first tenants in a wave of retailers, bars and restaurants that’s setting up digs in…
Maggiano’s Little Italy introduced an amazing deal today. From now through July 8, if you dine at a Maggiano’s — and there are two in Denver, one in the Pavilions and one in the Tech Center — and order a chef’s $12.95 speciality dish, you’ll get your next night’s dinner…
Although I dedicated nearly 2000 words to Rioja in my review this week (and an additional grand to Larimer Square, where Rioja is located, plus a few more hundred to a blog teasing my review of Rioja), I forgot to use any of those words to mention my favorite thing…
The Bonnie Brae Tavern turned 75 on Sunday, and celebrated by serving 75 cent beers and plates of spaghetti for $1.75. “It was crazy in here,” says Michael Dire, who co-manages the place with his cousin, Rick. Michael and Rick are the third generation of Dires to work at the…
It’s already got four bars, a full menu, big crowds and, in my opinion, the best Guinness pour in the city. It has a prime location (at 1550 Court Place) for foot traffic, a big patio and an entire hotel’s worth of captive customers. So what else could Katie Mullen’s…
A reader recently e-mailed me a good question: Whether the Chinook Tavern — which left its longtime home at 265 Detroit Street last June, in hopes of reopening at the Landmark last fall — was ever going to reappear.That e-mail got me thinking, because it seems like, well, forever since…
Twins Will and Dave Elger, who were born in Mexico but are very much Denverites, worked in the tequila business for a decade before creating their own five years ago: Muchote Tequila. Nancy Levine first caught up with it last September at Lime XS, where she discovered it made a…
Just got off the phone with Anthony, who couldn’t have been any more polite — or any less forthcoming — about the story behind Simms Landing, the iconic Lakewood restaurant at 11911 West Sixth Avenue, a perch from which it has overlooked downtown Denver for more than thirty years, moving…
