The nineteenth annual Colorado BBQ Challenge kicks off today in downtown Frisco. The three-day event features more than sixty barbecue teams competing for top honors as the best in Rockies. There will also be a tour of the Breckenridge Distillery tomorrow and a live demo with Jenna Johansen from Bravo’s…
It was once perfectly acceptable to have a three-martini lunch in this country, but that practice has gone the way of fax machines and napping under your desk after a long, liquid lunch. Not every culture is so prudish, though: The Italians and French still like wine at their mid-day…
True confession: We rarely go to Jax Fish House in search of amazing wine. That’s not to say that we never go there. In fact, we’ve had more meals at Jax than you can shake a fish stick at. Way back in the day when folks were still a bit…
Everyone, insists Jensen Cummings, the exec chef of Row 14 Restaurant & Wine Bar, and one of the partners of a new fast-casual restaurant that will haul balls, owns a slotted spoon, knows someone who owns a slotted spoon, or, at the very least, has seen a slotted spoon in…
“Denver is an amazing coffee city,” says Chris Dohse, manager of Drip Denver, “and we’re excited to be part of its coffee culture.” Not long ago, the future of dining and retail at the beleaguered Beauvallon building looked bleak. But with Drip, which just opened its doors on Monday in…
After relocating to Cherry Creek North from Lakewood last year, Bisque has shuttered. The restaurant’s voicemail simply states: “We are now closed. Thank you for your support and we do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.” Follow @CafeWestword on Twitter and at facebook.com/denvercafesociety…
Great Divide will celebrate eighteen years in Denver on Saturday with the brewery’s annual block party on Arapahoe Street — an event that will feature several special, one-off brews made on Great Divide’s six-month-old pilot brewing system. And all of the brewers on staff can take credit for the results…
Wit’s End Brewing, which may be Denver’s smallest beer maker, is getting bigger. Owner Scott Witsoe has purchased two three-barrel fermenting tanks from Strange Brewing, which is going through an expansion of its own. “Once I get these online, it will almost double my fermentation capacity,” says Witsoe, who started…
Pete Marczyk (who’s interviewed in this week’s chef and tell) 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…
I know, right? A smurf fart, otherwise known as blue vodka and Sprite in a shot glass. I’m seriously too old for this shit. And while my kid is too young to drink it, he’s also at that age where saying “smurf fart” five billion times can keep him and…
Pete Marczyk Marczyk Fine Foods 770 East 17th Avenue, 303-894-9499 5100 East Colfax Avenue, 303-243-3355 www.marczykfinefoods.com This is part one of my interview with Pete Marczyk. Part two of our chat will run tomorrow. Bread head, wine geek, cheese gigolo, butter junkie. Ask Pete Marczyk, the chef and co-owner of…
Celebrity chefs are winging into Colorado for this weekend’s Aspen Food & Wine festival, and one lands in Denver today: Amanda Cohen, chef-owner of Dirt Candy, a renowned vegetarian restaurant in New York, will be at Linger tonight as part of the Celebrity Chef Tour, a moveable feast that crosses…
The fourth annual Hot Rocks Griller Challenge heats up this evening at Elway’s Cherry Creek, 2500 East First Avenue. The party, which runs from 6 to 9 p.m., pits fifteen of Denver’s top chefs against each other in a friendly competition benefiting the Denver Health Foundation…
In an effort to aid victims affected by the High Park fire outside of Fort Collins, Larkburger will donate 10 percent of sales from all seven of its locations to the Red Cross today. “It’s a community that we live and work in, so this fundraiser has a little more…
Did beer gardens exist before hipsters recently discovered them? You’re darn Teuton! For more than thirty years — since before its hometown was officially known as Centennial — Karl’s Deli has been serving German specialties, including beer, on its front patio overlooking a suburban strip mall. Christoph Zierhut purchased the…
Chipotle Mexican Grill got its start in Denver, and in October it will be bringing its hometown a major thank-you present: the free Cultivate Food, Ideas & Music Festival. The one-day festival, which Chipotle introduced last year in Chicago, drew 17,000 people to a city park for demonstrations by celebrity…
Justin “Crunchy” Gwin is best known as a loud-talking, dick joke-telling, action-packing chef at Occupy Denver’s free (and now former) kitchen, the Thunderdome. And while he might be the Thunderdome’s only chef to have avoided arrest, Gwin still managed to blend food politics with anarchist politics while he supported the…
Wazee Supper Club, 1600 15th Street, opened its doors today after closing in late April for a remodel. The renovated space now boasts air-conditioning, new furniture, an upstairs lounge and, most important, a fully redesigned kitchen — which Wazee chef Randy Balch couldn’t be happier about. Read why in his…
When the new Squeaky Bean finally opens next week in LoDo, much of what will appear on your plate will come directly from Squeaky Acre, a one-acre farm in Lakewood that’s growing the majority of vegetables that executive chef Max Mackissock, his kitchen crew and the rest of the Bean…
Our waitress — she was tiny — nearly fell over from the weight of the bibimbap at this funky Korean restaurant, where the gargantuan portions result in leftovers for days to come. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s…
Michael Zheng opened Okinawa in late 2010 at 2301 East Colfax Avenue, in a spot that had failed before as a sushi joint — but it’s done well enough that Zheng opened another outpost of Okinawa in a strip mall at 12652 West Ken Caryl Avenue, in a space that…
Whole Foods doesn’t just fill your shopping cart — and empty your wallet. Several of the stores, including the Whole Foods in Capitol Hill, now offer a one-stop shop for basic bike problems: a Dero Fixit bike stand. “There are fifteen to twenty bikes parked out in front of our…
