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…
Lower48 Kitchen, our Best New Restaurant in the Best of Denver 2014, is bringing it home with the “Prix-Fixe Culinary Tour of the Lower48” rotating dinner special for June. This round will focus on the tastes of summer in Colorado, with weekly “State Fair”-inspired menus. The special meal is $34 and…
Oskar Blues threw its third annual Burning Can ExtravaCANza over the weekend in Lyons, a canned craft beer festival that the brewery calls the “first active beer fest” in the country. In addition to plenty of canned beers, festival-goers were treated to slack-line competitions, kayaking, a cornhole tournament and a…
Andrew Myhre and Steve Longman opened their Inside Scoop Creamery in downtown Littleton two years ago, serving house-made ice cream from a quaint shop on Prince Street. Now they’re bringing Inside Scoop to Denver, with a new shop on Platte Street next door to the Savory Spice Shop. Myhre says…
May saw the departure of a couple of old Denver favorites: Sullivan’s Steakhouse, which had held down the corner of 18th and Wazee streets since 1999, and the much more storied Elitch Lanes, which bowled its last strike on Tennyson Street and then shuttered after more than six decades in…
Negroni Week, a seven-day celebration of the classic cocktail, begins today and runs through Sunday, June 7, at various venues across the city. Across the world, over a thousand bars and restaurants are also participating in the program, stirring classic and contemporary versions of the iconic cocktail. Ten Denver bars…
It’s often said you eat with your eyes as much as your stomach, and if that’s true, Lena on South Broadway will have you salivating from the second you’re seated. Sneak a peak at your neighbor’s Mezcal Old Fashioned presented as a botanically muddled masterpiece paired with artfully arranged, brightly…
Lenka Juchelkova wasn’t trying to open a bar — she was just looking for a dishwasher. She heard that a dishwashing machine was available at 1543 Champa St., and stopped by to take a look. A wine events space occupied that address and it was going out of business. Juchelkova,…
First Watch, a Florida-based breakfast-and-lunch chain that got its start in California in 1983, opened its first Colorado restaurant last week in Northglenn. Over the next five years, the company plans to add seven more First Watch locations over the next five years along the Front Range, from Fort Collins…
This is not just the start of June: It’s the start of the first Charc Week, a meaty new event in Denver. This is also the first day of Negroni Week, and restaurants and bars around the world — including many in Denver — are joining Campari in celebrating a…
This week saw a number of openings and closings haunted by the spirits of Denver restaurant history. Spruce Tap House closed without notice after only seven months on Blake Street, the victim of a redevelopment project that will result in new condos. The space had seen a fair amount of…
Everyone who is anyone in the Colorado cannabis industry was at the VIP grand opening of NATIV Hotel — Denver’s first pot-friendly hotel — in LoDo last night. Guests were welcomed with music from DJ Norman Doray, champagne spiced up with jalapeno or strawberry simple syrup, CBD-infused coffee and an…
When Erika Thomas and Chad Stutz opened High Point Creamery (winner of our Best Ice Cream/Gelato Shop award this year) in the Hilltop neighborhood a year ago, the plan was to follow up with a second ice cream shop in River North this summer. Those plans are still in 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…
At any given hour, Denver’s Union Station is buzzing with all sorts of visitors: travelers just passing through, regulars stopping in for lunch or coffee, and nervous-looking social media users looking for their Tinder dates. It’s a place where you can find just about anything your palate desires. Seafood, craft…
The best thing about street food is that the only utensils you normally need are your hands. Modern food trucks rallying at well-planned setups like Civic Center Eats, where shaded tables and chairs are provided, can serve messier fare that requires a knife, fork or spoon, but if you want…
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…
As we prepare to say goodbye to May and welcome June, the culinary schedule starts heating up. This weekend features the first Final Friday event of the season, the annual Burning Can festival, and a major program showing that Meat Matters. Keep reading to find out how to have a…
If you’re a fan of Kelly Whitaker’s wood-fired cookery at Boulder’s Basta, take note: The restaurant will be closed for minor improvements from Sunday, May 31, through Wednesday, June 3. Whitaker says Basta will reopen on June 4 with a few changes to the bar and chef’s counter as well…
As we reported last week, the historic El Rancho restaurant and conference center, which closed in 2012, is set to reopen later this year under new ownership as a brewpub; the iconic log-cabin building, which sits just off of I-70 at the exit for Evergreen, has a storied history. The original…
Los Chingones is a restaurant made for happy hour: A big, beautiful rooftop patio, a location amidst the creative agencies and cultural hot spots around Ballpark and RiNo, and enough tequila to knock out a boutique ad shop for days. And as a Troy Guard venture, the food has proven…
First Watch, a breakfast-and-lunch chain that got its start in California in 1983, opened its first Colorado restaurant this week at 120th Avenue and I-25 in Northglenn. The company plans to add seven more First Watch locations over the next five years along the Front Range, from Fort Collins to…
