Reader: Papa John’s needs the dough to pay Peyton Manning!

Since Peyton Manning doesn’t work fulltime as a Papa John’s spokesman, CEO John Schnatter doesn’t have to cover the quarterback’s health insurance (which has to be hefty). And he’d like to make sure that as many Papa John’s employees as possible work under thirty hours a week, so that the…

ViewHouse will open in early 2013 in former home of Mori

Lotus Concepts is raising the roof — literally — on the Victorian building at 2015 Market Street that for decades held Mori Japanese Restaurant. But Mori closed abruptly four years ago, and club king Francois Safieddine bought the spot from the Nisei Veterans Heritage Foundation for a reported $900,000 in…

Guess where I’m eating…peanuts?

The dining room (and bar) was a circus, peanuts (and off-key staff renditions of “Happy Birthday”) included. Only things missing were the elephants and Cracker Jacks. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Guess Where posts is entered into…

An open letter to Mark DeNittis: Why is Il Mondo Vecchio closing?

Earlier this month, I broke the news that Il Mondo Vecchio, Mark DeNittis’s artisan sausage plant, would cease production at the end of November. And within minutes of the announcement, you could hear the collective sighs of despair all over the state — and beyond. When I interviewed DeNittis, he…

Cooking with Pete and Barb Marczyk: sweet potato and carrot puree

Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with the big, new kitchen. They often bring some of their market’s choicest ingredients home with them and cook up a feast. “I found this…

The Sweet Basil Cookbook debuts just in time for the 2012 holidays

Vail’s Sweet Basil restaurant produces some beautiful dishes, like their signature cauliflower and black truffle bisque, crispy veal sweetbreads and Greek yogurt cheesecake with honey-poached blueberries. And on November 20, owners Kevin Clair and Matt Morgan, with executive chef Paul Anders, will spill their sweet, savory and spicy secrets in…

Photos: Zest Cafe is now open on South Wadsworth

Zest Cafe opened last month at 2740 South Wadsworth Boulevard, and owner Andrew Krull and his crew have been serving up organic, locally-sourced cafe fare to an appreciative crowds ever since. “We make everything from scratch, including the bread,” Krull says, “and we have an amazing baker with thirty years…

Reader: I love Trillium, but Gretchen is right about its flaws

Chef/owner Ryan Leinonen says that a rare flower, the blue trillium, was the inspiration for the restaurant that he opened last year in the Ballpark neighborhood, Trillium. But a flawless meal here is also a rare thing, as Gretchen Kurtz discovered when she reviewed the place this week. See also:…

Meet your 2012 Denver #WebAwards food winners

We came. We saw. We tweeted. Last night, Westword hosted the third annual Denver Web Awards, our celebration of Denver’s greatest digital minds. In September, we put out a call for you, dear readers, to nominate your favorite online projects, and a team at Westword spent more than a month…

City Spirit Reunion will party in Taxi tonight

Taxi, 3455 Ringsby Court, is hosting a City Spirit Cafe reunion tonight from 7 to 10 p.m. The one-night party will feature the bar and booths from the original City Spirit — a popular hangout for artists and other hipsters in LoDo that closed in 1997. And fans of the…

Full Steam Tavern stalls in the original home of City Spirit

Developer Mickey Zeppelin bought the old Victorian building at 1434 Blake Street back in the early ’80s, moving his office upstairs, putting an architectural bookstore in the basement, and then opening the iconic City Spirit Cafe with his wife, artist Susan Wick, on the first floor. After the closed City…

Exclusive first look: Infinite Monkey Theorem Winery and Wine Lab

Yesterday afternoon, just hours before Ben Parsons would unveil his new wine lab, part of the 30,000 square-foot plot he leased last year in RiNo that’s now the quarters of the Infinite Monkey Theorem manufacturing facility and tasting/taproom (Parsons refers to it as a wine lab), the British-born winemaker was…

Round two with Kevin Morrison, exec chef-owner of Pinche Taqueria

Kevin Morrison Pinche Taqueria 1514 York Street 720-475-1337 pinchetacos.com Part one of my interview with Kevin Morrison, exec chef-owner of Pinche Taqueria, ran yesterday; this is part two of our chat. What do you enjoy most about your craft? It’s always changing, so it fits my personality. I get bored…

Trillium: a taste of this week’s review

Unless you’re a movie buff, you probably don’t remember The Doctor, a touching early-’90s film about a surgeon diagnosed with cancer. Having seen life through a patient’s lens, the doctor, played by Oscar winner William Hurt, learns to practice a different, more empathetic kind of medicine after his recovery. Ryan…