What’s in a name? Plenty, if you’re Pete Turner, owner of Illegal Pete’s. Not so much, if you’re Jim Nixon. Nixon is the owner of Illegal Burger, a two-location (so far) chain that he founded in 2013 in Evergreen. That’s where he already had a Mexican restaurant, a Senor Sol…
When did decaffeinated coffee become so fancy? When I dropped by Honor Society Handcrafted Eatery one recent morning for this week’s review of Honor Society, I heard the girl at the counter tell a customer that the restaurant doesn’t brew decaf. “The reason we don’t make ‘fancy’ coffee,” she said, pausing…
As of last Friday, the newest addition to the Denver coffee scene lives in the booming RiNo neighborhood. Stowaway Coffee + Kitchen aims to introduce an Australian-style café to Denver as a change from typical American coffee or brunch spots. Owners Amy Cohen and Hayden Barnie bring inspiration from their…
After years, decades of waiting for Denver’s economic boom to reach Five Points, that day finally seems to have arrived. But with all this newfound interest in the area, will Five Points lose its colorful past? Tom’s Home Cookin’ just closed after sixteen years…but that’s a relative drop in the…
Yesterday, we brought you a list of hard-to-find sandwiches in Denver that hail from all over the globe. Most of these sandwiches are unique in the city — unless you know of more than one place to find a St. Paul sandwich (a collision of white bread and American-Chinese egg…
Justin Brunson wasn’t an obvious addition to the founding team behind Honor Society Handcrafted Eatery, a fast-fine restaurant that opened this summer in a new office building behind Union Station. If you’re looking for a charcuterie whiz, he’s your guy. If you’re craving a three-pound pork chop and pork-fat fries,…
New Saigon was one of the first Vietnamese restaurants in the city, and for many years the very best, winning Best of Denver award after Best of Denver award. After more than thirty years in the business, though, husband-and-wife owners Thai Nguyen and Ha Pham were feeling burned out, so…
Americans may not have invented the sandwich, but we’ve definitely taken the physics and geometry of nearly every bread-and-filling combination to extremes, from teetering Dagwoods to sauce-drenched sloppy Joes to heavyweight hoagies. We’re not the only innovators to latch onto sandwiches as the perfect portable street food or fast lunch,…
Since we told the story of the Coca-Cola ghost sign — a remnant of the past uncovered during recent renovations of 2801 Welton Street — we’re seeing ghosts everywhere, several involving Coca-Cola, a company that covered the costs for many of these decade-old signs. In June, a demolition project in…
El Tepehuan closed on South Broadway on November 23 after nearly forty years in the same Englewood spot. Owner J. Miguel Corral plans to reopen the restaurant as El Tep a few doors down at 3495 South Broadway sometime next spring, but in the meantime, he has launched a food truck…
For those of you who can’t get enough of chef and restauranteur Tommy Lee’s funky ramens and Asian creations at Uncle, get ready, tonight his latest food concept, Hop Alley, opens to the public. “We are trying to serve ‘authentic’ Asian food and pair it with a more sophisticated bar…
Cherry Creek is changing and changing fast as it loses many of its longtime mainstays and pricy chains move into the area; reader Greg likens the new look to Rodeo Drive. At the end of the year, the Wizard’s Chest — which just opened a store at 451 Broadway —…
The Rackhouse Pub re-opened on Saturday, December 12, after a nearly two-year absence. The original Rackhouse shared a warehouse space with Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey on South Kalamath Street; the new restaurant and bar at 2875 Blake Street will also serve as the taproom for C Squared Ciders and Bierstadt Lagerhaus (which…
We’re winding down to the final installments of our 100 Favorite Dishes, with only one left for 2015. For No. 2, we enjoyed a seafood bite at Genesee Park’s Hideaway Kitchen + Bar . The Hideaway is one of a growing number of destination eateries along the Interstate 70 corridor that’s…
It has been a year and a half since the original Rackhouse Pub closed on South Kalamath Street next to the Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey distillery. But owner Chris Rippe is finally ready to throw open the doors to a new incarnation of his beer-centric pub, this time in partnership with…
No. 2: Fried Chesapeake Oyster at Hideaway Kitchen + Bar Head up Interstate 70 to Genesee Park (it won’t take as long as you think) and then look for the shopping center tucked behind the Chart House. In the far corner, you’ll see the Hideaway, looking more like a neighborhood…
The First Avenue Hotel has seen a lot over the past century, but the wildest chapter started three years ago, in July 2012, when the city slapped a notice to vacate on the circa 1906 building that developer Jesse Morreale had purchased in 2008 and renovated, arguing that the structure was unsafe…
Pete Turner founded Illegal Pete’s in Boulder twenty years ago, when he opened his first burrito joint on the Hill. Yesterday afternoon, he opened his first out-of-state restaurant in Tucson — which attracted a packed house of customers and an estimated fifty protesters with a petition demanding he change the name, claiming that…
Nearly a year ago New Saigon’s owners, husband-and-wife team Thai Nguyen and Ha Pham, were feeling burned out after more than thirty years in the business, so they sold the restaurant and made plans to slowly transition the kitchen to the new owners. They kept New Saigon Bakery next door in…
Pete Turner ran his homegrown chain of burrito joints for for nineteen years without hearing so much as a peep about its name, Illegal Pete’s. But then last year Turner opened a location in Fort Collins — and activists there complained that the name was a slap at the undocumented. “I didn’t…
Over the last eighteen months, several new bars/restaurants have moved into Five Points. First came Rosenberg’s Bagels & Deli, which brought new crowds to the area. Then came Dunbar’s Kitchen & Tap House, followed by Spangalang Brewery, and there are many more to come. But with the additions come losses:…
The Boulder County Farmers’ Markets organization, which operates weekly markets in Boulder and Longmont, has been the envy of Denver food lovers for years. Many of them make regular visits to Boulder; some complain that Denver farmers’ markets tend to be more like flea markets than purveyors of healthy foods…
