When Scott Durrah and Wanda James were trying to decide what to call their newest concept, a laid-back Southern restaurant and bar, they kept coming back to Jezebel’s Jezebel’s, the name of their basset hound. They liked it for its “undercurrent of excitement,” says James, “whatever that means to you.”…
South Gaylord Street has seen a lot of restaurants come and go, but Restaurant Japon is a stalwart, not just on South Gaylord, but in the Denver dining scene, standing court in the middle of Washington Park’s most bustling block for eighteen years, a feat for any restaurant. But on…
Left Hand Brewing marked its twentieth anniversary last week (a trying week, considering the floods that nearly wreaked havoc on the brewery), and to celebrate, the Longmont company is temporarily bringing back five beers it no longer makes. “These are some old favorites,” says Joe Schiraldi, who is vice president…
UPDATE: We have a winner of our EatDenver Harvest Week contest, in which we asked Cafe Society readers to answer this question: How many heads of lettuce does the GrowHaus harvest in a week? Congratulations to mini_d, who guessed 1,000 heads of lettuce, which is the exact number. Mini_d, we’ll…
Suffice it to say that I eat out more than the general population, unless, of course, the general population can catalogue more than 450 restaurant meals in a year — which is about the number of breakfasts, lunches and dinners that I stomached in 2012. Pathetic, isn’t it? But all…
All too often, Vietnamese noodle bowls are undermined by a crop of lettuce lurking at the bottom of the bowl, but the bún at this Vietnamese restaurant brims with generous amounts of savory meats, glistening herbs, noodles with a spring in their step and crisp vegetables, which give the traditional…
As Westword’s Ask the Bartender columnist, I’ve talked with many bartenders for Cafe Society’s “Behind the Bar” series, posing numerous questions to Denver’s top bartenders…and often receiving the same answers: “I love chartreuse,” or “I’m really into smoked cocktails/barrel aging/bottled cocktails.” See also: A bartender by any other name…is still…
Everyone agrees that Denver Restaurant Week has been a delicious deal for the city, but there were a few things about it that didn’t make sense. For starters, Denver Restaurant Week hasn’t been a week-long for years; when the economy tanked in late 2008, it was extended to two weeks,…
There are 26 Tokyo Joe’s location in Colorado — a state that may pump out more fast-casual chain stores per capita than any other (see: Chipotle, Garbanzo, Qdoba, Smashburger, etc.). Although the menu includes a vegetarian sushi roll that’s not bad (it has cream cheese, which is bad news for…
Chipotle got its start in Denver, when founder Steve Ells opened the first Chipotle at 1644 Evans Avenue in July 1993. There are now 74 Chipotle locations in Colorado — and another thousand around the globe — and yesterday all of this state’s stores introduced the first new protein in…
Five years ago Ben Parsons opened a winery in an old quonset hut just off Santa Fe Drive, and used Colorado-grown grapes to make wines in this unlikely setting. Last year, he moved his winery to a 30,000 square-foot facility in RiNo, where he also opened a tasting room. And…
Rise and shine! Not one, but two Dunkin’ Donuts locations are debuting today in Denver: a Dunkin’ Donuts at 366 Broadway, which opens today at 5 a.m. and bills itself as “the city’s flagship Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant”, and one at at Denver International Airport’s new waiting area, Final Approach, which…
As the Colorado floods subside and relief efforts move forward, stories have surfaced about how people fared, especially in the town of Lyons, which was hit particularly hard. Craig Engelhorn was concluding a typical day at Spirit Hound Distillers last Wednesday, when he got in his car to head home…
When you talk to Duy Pham, executive chef of Epernay, he sounds like a scientist, jazzed about everything from sous vide cooking to the way acids interact with certain foods. But Pham also has an artistic side, which comes across in his cooking. “I’ve always been into art and try…
Whoa, what a difference a remodel makes! But the menu? It still pimps an American-Italian board of standards, including a very cheesy lasagna. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to a Guess Where post is entered into a pool — and…
Matt Hughes had a harder time thinking of a name for his brewery than he did for his kids, but the result seems to fit the bouncing baby business. Goldspot Brewing, which will be located on Lowell Boulevard about a block from Regis University in northwest Denver, is named for…
You can’t live in Colorado without having a good guacamole recipe. Naturally vegan, it’s a fantastic accessory to just about any dish you want to serve — from burgers to enchiladas. This version lets the avocado shine through, without a lot of additions to overpower one of nature’s perfect foods…
If I had one wish, first I would go standard and ask for more wishes — but then I would ask that all the fall-themed, pumpkin-flavored foods and drinks continue year- round. I would do this because I am absolutely, admittedly one of the lamestreamers who not only overindulges in…
Last Friday, after months of delays (read: back-and-forth with the city about this, that and the other), Rod Dupen and his business partner John Power, opened their third Waffle Brothers in Uptown. And unlike the Waffle Brothers in Alamo Placita, or their kiosk in Boulder, this third waffle incarnation, which…
Cafe Society dished up five Guess Where? contests last week, ranging from a vodka-based cocktail shrouded in liquid nitrogen from 1515 Restaurant, to a lovely pasta-and-mozzarella salad from Amerigo Delicatus Restaurant and Market, to a lackluster skillet of corn bread from a bar with numerous locations…
For the first time in close to two decades, Chipotle is rolling out a new protein. The Denver-born chain will debut “sofritas” in all 74 of its Colorado stores today. In advance of the roll-out, we got a chance to try the new protein (spoiler alert: it’s meat-free, but so…
DISH, our nineteenth annual celebration of the Denver dining scene, filled Sculpture Park at the Denver Performing Arts Complex with food and drink from some of Cafe Society’s favorite restaurants, as well as Best of Denver reader choices. See also: Slide show on the food of DISH 2013…
