What’s for Lunch: Hops & Pie’s Italian Hero

Every now and then a dish comes around to surprise you, but it’s not often that meal comes in sandwich form. Such is the case with Hops & Pie’s true hero, the Italian. Chef/co-owner Drew Watson created this magnificent sandwich more than five years ago, and the fact that the…

Mici Handcrafted Italian Hires New CEO With Plans for Future Growth

Mici Handcrafted Italian has quietly built a quartet of family-friendly eateries dotted across the metro Denver landscape. Starting in 2004, the Miceli family — siblings Jeff, Michael and Kim — has slowly grown the business to locations at 1531 Stout Street downtown, 2373 Central Park Boulevard in Stapleton, 9245 South Broadway…

Solutions Adds Food and Drink to the Escape Room Experience

Tina and Vic Ronder tried to escape — but they just got pulled deeper into the escape-room experience. After recognizing the business potential of the popular puzzle rooms that require team members to work together to solve the mystery and unlock the door, the couple is building their own version…

Healthful Juices: Your Next Stop for a Jamaican Lunch

Caribbean cooking comes and goes in Five Points. A few intrepid food hunters may remember long-gone joints like the Cat Island Cafe and Sadie’s Caribbean Cafe, or have perhaps visited A Taste of Haiti at 2622 Welton Street or tucked into the “Island-style pates” (similar to overstuffed empanadas) at the…

Denver Instagrammer Launches New Dining Discount Club

When Annie Stookesberry created the Instagram account 5280_eats nearly three years ago, she saw it as nothing more than a creative outlet for her interest in Denver’s restaurants. “I found myself posting photos of food on my personal Instagram account, and thought, I should do this anonymously,” she says. “I…

Matt Selby on Rustic Cooking, Vesta and Bremen’s Wine & Tap

Chef Matt Selby has a long culinary resume in Denver. For fifteen years, he helmed the culinary ship at Secret Sauce, rising to prominence with the whimsical, bold cooking that anchors Vesta and its younger siblings, Steuben’s and Ace. Now he’s landed at Bremen’s Wine & Tap, a casual neighborhood joint that opened at 2005 West 32nd Avenue in June.

Hashing It Out at Bear Valley’s Doghouse Tavern

What happens when a restaurant group rounds up a few chefs and challenges them to create a new dish? Usually not much. Chefs are great at putting a spin on a dish, reinterpreting a dish, or coming up with a good mash-up. But rarely do we see a whole new…

Godfather’s Pizza Doubles Down With Southeast Denver Outpost

Denverites hungry for pizza and nostalgia flocked to Godfather’s Pizza when it returned to the metro area after a two-decade absence. A new branch of the Nebraska-based chain settled in at at 2350 East 120th Avenue in Thornton last year, but that’s a long drive for many metro-Denver pie lovers, who…

All the Restaurant Openings and Closings This Week

August got off to a good start, with Candela Latin Kitchen coming to LoHi to replace Central Bistro & Bar (from the same owner and chef), Cub’s Q Barbeque finding a permanent home in Littleton after several years on the food-truck circuit, and a suburban outpost of Old Spaghetti Factory…

The Westword Watch List: Where and What to Eat Right Now

We’ve got a brand new plantain-heavy menu on the Watch List this week, plus a whole selection of new items from established eateries. There’s the return of brunch to one RiNo restaurant, a Japanese lunch special at another. And sandwiches on fresh-baked bread are worth a lunchtime stop at two…

New Belgium Cancels August 26 Denver Leg of Tour de Fat Festival

Tour de Fat, New Belgium Brewing Company’s annual celebration of bicycle and beer culture, will have one less stop this year. The brewery has canceled the Denver festival originally scheduled for August 26. “We’ve heard from many of you who are frustrated and disappointed by many of the Tour de…

Six Stops for Slurping on National Oyster Day — Saturday, August 5

Oysters are an all-around celebratory saltwater delicacy, from sweet, jagged-edge West Coast varieties to salty-smooth East Coast offerings. So, what’s a Denver oyster enthusiast to do when the nearest body of saltwater is hundreds of miles away? Luckily, several Mile High outposts are going out of their way this Saturday…

Sushi Ronin Team Plans Izakaya Ronin for Former Tengu Space

Amid all of the construction dust and noise along Brighton Boulevard, a hidden restaurant space has remained vacant in the Industry building since Tengu Ramen closed more than a year ago. But the dust will soon settle and chef Cory Baker of Sushi Ronin (2930 Umatilla Street in LoHi) is…