Restaurants

Sydney Stroup, owner of Lechuga’s at 3609 Tejon Street, isn’t content to wait for inevitable gentrification to sweep her old-school eatery into the heap of lost northside restaurants. Instead, since taking over from Chuck Lechuga and Rachel Vigil in 2014, she’s been extending the Lechuga’s brand. First she added a kiosk on…

The news that Shake Shake is coming to town later this year had many Denver diners talking about the burger joints that they’d like to see open up in the Mile High City. Once again, In-N-Out and White Castle topped the list…for some.

Burgers and tacos and empanadas, oh my. There were plenty of noshables in this week’s restaurant news, as New York City’s fast-food phenomenon, Shake Shack, announced plans to come to RiNo later this year — just as locavore burger bar American Grind was getting ready to sizzle as the newest…

There’s been a void in the Ballpark empanada scene ever since Buenos Aires Pizzeria closed down last fall, but that changes today. Lazo Empanadas is now open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the same location — 1319 22nd Street — that Buenos Aires previously occupied. Lazo started…

No. 27: Rocky Mountain Oysters at Lulu’s Inn Yeehaw! The National Western Stock Show is in town, which means that Lulu’s Inn, a rollicking restaurant and bar just off I-70 in Watkins, will be jumping all month, the parking lot full of pickups, the tables inside full of hungry ranchers…

As a building, Hart’s Corner has withstood the test of time, squatting at the corner of South Sheridan Boulevard and West Mississippi Avenue for nearly a century. Businesses have come and gone, but for most of its life, the old roadhouse has housed a series of divey bars and restaurants…

Chef Andrea Frizzi didn’t miss many days of work at the beginning of January. After closing the original Il Posto 1t 2011 East 17th Avenue after New Year’s Eve dinner service, less than two weeks later the restaurant was up and running in its new home at 2501 Larimer Street. And…

Is something bugging you? Maybe you’re not getting enough insects in your diet. As one of the leaders in insect-based food, Linger wants to fix that. Last night, the LoHi eatery got buggy with guest chef and author, David George Gordon, for a Denver Bug Banquet & Benefit to raise money…

Lucky Pie owner Brendan McManus and director of operations James Samara opened El Jefe to the public last night at the corner of West 44th Avenue and Alcott Street in Sunnyside. The Mexican restaurant joins Bacon Social House and Cheese + Provisions to complete a culinary trifecta at the Cobbler’s Corner development…

American Grind started its life as a mobile food vendor in the summer of 2014, serving diner-style burgers and milkshakes. But owner Jared Schwartz says he had to “put that idea to sleep for a while” as he was busy opening the Way Back with fellow Linger alumni Chad Michael…

There’s no shortage of Colorado-born burger bars: With Illegal Burger, Crave Real Burgers, TAG Burger Bar, Larkburger, Park Burger and Smashburger all based here, no cow is safe in this state. Even Red Robin and Good Times have local ties. But meat lovers still crave the burgers of their home towns or…

John Broening has been a torchbearer for Denver’s culinary community for the better part of the last two decades. In addition to stints at Brasserie Rouge, Le Grand Bistro and Argyll, he and his wife, pastry maven Yasmin Lozada-Hissom, owned and operated Duo — a leader in Denver’s nascent New…

Mell’s Cheese carved out a new restaurant space at West 30th Avenue and Zuni Street in the fall of 2015, but made it only a year before closing up shop. The building has been vacant since November but will soon have a new tenant. Kathy Knight, co-owner of Crepes ‘n…

You can find corner markets with innocuous names that offer little indication of their contents all over Denver and its surrounding suburbs. The European Market, for example, is wedged into a strip-mall spot between a nail salon and a dollar-a-scoop Chinese joint in Lakewood. Europe’s a pretty broad category for…

Some restaurants feel timeless, as if they’ve been around forever but somehow maintain the energy and attraction of a brand-new eatery. Such is the case with Fruition, chef/owner Alex Seidel’s tribute to Colorado’s changing seasons that draws heavily from the farm he maintains just outside of Larkspur. Next month, Fruition…

Of all the tacos served and eaten at our Mexican street-food festival, Tacolandia, last summer, some of the most memorable came from a food truck called Roxie’s Tacos, which topped fresh flour tortillas with a variety of Indian fillings, from chana masala chick peas to its aromatic Red Oven Chicken…

Denver needs more more small, chef-driven restaurants in 2017 and fewer “concepts,” says this reader.

Last year was a busy one for restaurant openings, with more than 220 debuting in metro Denver in 2016. And so far, 2017 is looking to keep pace. Two eateries opened this week; many more are scheduled to arrive in January and the months ahead. Here are the two that got out of the gate fast this week, along with eight more to look forward to.

A new year begins, and with it, the count of restaurant openings and closings resets. We’re already off to a good start, especially where familiar breakfast joints are concerned. The team behind the two DJ’s Cafe locations (in Berkeley and on Lincoln Street) opened a third on East Colfax Avenue,…

Black Pearl restaurant closed at 1529 South Pearl last summer, leaving a note on its website that read: “In partnership with friends, neighbors, and our fellow local restaurateur, we have an exciting new concept for our location.” Just down the street, Gaia Bistro’s days were numbered as the cottage-turned-eatery was…

With so many new restaurants opening in the past few years and unemployment dropping to its lowest since 2008, finding qualified line and prep cooks has become increasingly difficult for restaurant owners. But a recent endeavor at the Emily Griffith Technical College is addressing the issue by getting service-industry hopefuls…