How quickly we forget! Laura Shunk took a beating when she debuted as our restaurant reviewer two years ago, and some of those comments featured prominently in the advice that Shunk offered the next Westword critic, Gretchen Kurtz, in a piece posted yesterday. A piece that’s winning raves…
The last of this summer’s Jazz Nights takes the stage at Little Man Ice Cream, 2620 16th Street, tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. Enjoy the shop’s ever-changing roster of ice cream flavors (and at least six sorbets) with a side of tunes — while you can…
Why Tip? By Josiah Hesse Last May, I was sitting in a bar in Spain, wondering why I was so relaxed. Beyond the typical high of travel — augmented by the Mediterranean lifestyle of beaches, naps and midday wine — I felt an ambiguous sense of peace in every bar…
Just when you thought there couldn’t possibly be another day dedicated to the celebration of…well, anything, oenophiles around the country will raise filled-to-the-brim glasses to toast National Cabernet Day on Thursday. While it’s easy to dismiss these booze-filled events as just another excuse to tie one on, in truth they’re…
Denver’s football stadium doesn’t just have a new name and signage. Sometime soon after next week’s regular season home opener, it will also have its own Tavern: The Tavern Hospitality Group is in the process of creating Tavern Mile High at Sports Authority Field. “We met with the Broncos earlier…
In advance of Gretchen Kurtz’s debut next week as the new Cafe critic, we asked some of our previous restaurant reviewers to weigh in — and given their jobs, we do mean weigh in — with advice for our new newest critic. Kyle Wagner, our reviewer for close to a…
Aaron Le considers himself lucky — very lucky. Two years ago, he took a big risk, opening a pho shop in the notoriously white-bred south suburbs, specifically at the Streets at SouthGlenn, where the majority of restaurants are mediocre chains — or bland American cuisine copycats that appeal to the…
In between doughnuts and bready sandwiches, it’s been a week of carb-overload, which is jacking up my healthy lifestyle. That last part? About my healthy lifestyle? File that with “Other Bullshit.” Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Guess…
Update: The winners have been notified! Thanks. A Taste of Colorado will return to Civic Center Park this weekend for its twenty-ninth year of fun and serious food. Seriously: The Taste features more than sixty food vendors cooking and selling their fare. Interest in eating your way through Labor Day…
Wynkoop Brewing Company is gearing up for the Great American Beer Festival and recently tapped a couple of its rarest but most outstanding beers. Orville is a blend of a couple of unusual beers: a pale ale fermented with brettanomyces in four wooden barrels for six weeks, and the same…
Josh Barhaug Fired Up 1135 Bannock Street 303-825-1995 www.gtfiredup.com This is part one of my chef interview with Josh Barhaug, who mans the line — and pizza oven — at Fired Up. Part two of our chat will run tomorrow. The first recipe that Josh Barhaug ever attempted came out…
Brava! Pizzeria Della Strada will be firing up its wood-fueled pizza wagon at Dish, Westword’s eighteenth annual food event set for next Thursday evening, September 6, in the Sculpture Park at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Here’s what to expect from our 2011 Best Specialty Pizza winner:…
Sean Kenyon knows how to get attention — whether he’s pouring a perfectly composed cocktail at Williams & Graham or the Squeaky Bean, serving up his opinions on this blog, or sending out a fast tweet, as he did recently when he told bartenders to quit wearing tank tops behind…
Zocalo has been serving up Mexican food and happy-hour margaritas for two years right off Broadway on Eleventh Avenue, and doing well enough that the owners are now adding a second location three miles further south on Broadway. “Thanks to all the support with the customers and everything, the business…
In advance of Gretchen Kurtz’s debut next week as the new Cafe critic, we asked some of our previous restaurant reviewers to weigh in — and given their jobs, we do mean weigh in — with advice for our new newest critic. Kyle Wagner, our reviewer for close to a…
It shouldn’t be about what you wear, right? According to Sean Kenyon, the barman behind the Squeaky Bean and Williams & Graham, it absolutely should be about that, especially if you’re one of those tenders who takes to wearing a “hipster” tank top when you’re slinging drinks behind the stick…
Dish, Westword’s annual eating orgy, is set for next Thursday evening, September 6 in the Sculpture Park at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Like last year’s celebration, all of the participating restaurants and trucks will be coming at the express invitation of Cafe Society scribes. One of the esteemed restaurants…
When I’m walking into a Panera Bread , it’s hard for me to remember that I’m not headed into Starbucks. There’s the same wafting aroma of espresso and suburban MILF perfume; the same mellow, snoozy music; and the counter employees are so gleeful I wonder if they’ve been threatened by…
I was on a mission for Indian food, but on the way there, experienced an abrupt craving for a (relatively) cheap steak, TVs and a bar that I knew wouldn’t be a see-and-be-seen scene. The singing kitchen staff and convivial bartender who fed me fruit were added bonuses. Can you…
The space at 946 Pearl Street in Boulder has gone through many incarnations over the past few years: It was a wine-making operation, then a wine bar called The Blending Cellar, which was bought and reopened as Cuvee — another wine bar that shuttered soon after. This June, the owner…
The Pho 95 in the Streets at SouthGlenn isn’t quite the same as the original on South Federal Boulevard. For one thing, this outpost on South Vine Street has a full bar; for another, the kitchen here has been experimenting with dishes that expand on the pho and bun that…
We’ll publish our first review by our new Cafe critic, Gretchen Kurtz, next week, and in the meantime, you’ll have plenty of chew on when our point/counterpoint on tipping appears here tomorrow. But as commenters and critics alike know all too well, there’s never any shortage of material on Cafe…
