Many folks who hear about the Telluride Mushroom Festival wonder whether it focuses on mushrooms for eating, or mushrooms for, you know, seeing Pocahontas riding a dragon and stuff. The confusion is reasonable, considering fungi’s dual history as both a food and as a catalyst for vision quests. See also:…
The ’90s were a big decade for big burritos in Denver. Qdoba was founded here in 1995, the same year that Illegal Pete’s got its start in Boulder. That was two years after Steve Ells transformed a former Dolly Madison store by the University of Denver into the first Chipotle…
No. 83 Chile Relleno Burrito at El Taco de Mexico 714 Santa Fe Drive 303-623-3926 The name of this tiny taco shack (little more than a lean-to, really) says everything it needs to: The taco of Mexico. A taco hunter seeking the best in town certainly couldn’t go wrong here,…
The first time I visited El Noa Noa Mexican Restaurant, I had no expectations. It was my initiation into the ritual of strolling along Santa Fe for its First Friday art walk, which was, I found, more about being seen than seeing the art. We wanted to escape the sidewalk…
In her recent review of the Kitchen Next Door Glendale, Gretchen Kurtz gave a short history of the TGI Fridays phenomenon, and wondered if the Kitchen Next Door could be the next big thing? It’s certainly becoming big in Denver, where the Kitchen Next Door just opened in Union Station,…
Sometimes food doesn’t take much thought — most of the time, in fact. Sometimes you just know what you want and you go and get it, and it’s good. Barbecue should be that way. There should be no long lines where jockeying with out-of-towners, food bloggers and aficionados is part…
Two weeks after Union Station held its grand opening for the public, Cooper Lounge has hopped on board. The bar is on the mezzanine level of the station, which has gotten a stunning facelift, with restored windows and fixtures, some new fixtures, and three coats of white paint. The Cooper…
Here’s a welcome sign: Dae Gee will soon its second location, this one in central Denver, at the former home of 4G’s Mexican Restaurant at 827 Colorado Boulevard. The original Dae Gee in Westminster won our Best Korean Restaurant award in the Best of Denver 2014 — and yes, there…
The news lately has been full of restaurant fuck-ups that create headaches for customers…and hardships for employees. While the restaurant industry as a whole serves a very useful purpose — it sells prepared meals to people who need and want them, provides a flow of tax money to communities, and…
Leña opened quietly last week — so quietly that its phones still weren’t hooked up yesterday — but word-of-mouth is already strong on this restaurant, a concept cooked up by Jimmy Callahan, the owner of Prohibition, and chef Toby Prout. The space on Broadway, a former antique store, was gutted…
The Hotel Boulderado opened on New Year’s Day 1909. Since then, restaurants have operated almost continuously in the Boulder landmark, including a few that became landmarks themselves — like Q’s, which Dave Query opened there almost twenty years ago. But in an ongoing effort to update the hotel, Q’s closed…
Bree Davies penned a Love Letter to Denver, the City I Used to Know for our arts blog last week, and in response dozens of people have spilled out their own memories, many of them of restaurants: Colorado Mine Company, Soapy Smith’s, Denver Drumstick, M&Ds, White Spot, Cafe Giovanni, Yum…
Biker Jim’s opened its second brick-and-mortar spot, this one in Highlands Ranch, at 11 a.m. today. Although the hours might not be as expansive in suburbia as they are at the original in the Ballpark neighborhood (where Biker Jim’s stays open until 3 a.m. on weekends), the menu is just…
Dorchester Social Eatery opens tomorrow in a prime slice of real estate at 15th and Market streets, on a block where the young and chic often club away the night with champagne, house music and expensive outfits. While offering a full dinner menu of continent-hopping entrees as well as smaller…
Here, kitty, kitty! Yesterday we told you about Sana Hamelin, an attorney who wants to follow her dream and open the city’s first cat cafe. And if donations pour into her Denver Cat Company fundraising campaign the way comments have been flowing, she should have no problem meeting her goal…
More than forty restaurants opened in July, with dozens more the month before. But amidst the boom comes news of a significant closing: twelve, which celebrated its fifth anniversary with a grand soiree last fall, will serve its last seasonally-inspired supper on August 23. When a place like twelve closes,…
At lunchtime today, there were a lot of disappointed people outside the locked doors of Zocalo Restaurant & Bar, the Mexican joint that some veteran employees of Benny’s opened four years ago on East 11th Avenue. But no one was more disappointed than landlord Regas Christou, who’d stopped by to…
After thirty years, the T-Wa Inn — billed as Denver’s first Vietnamese restaurant, a claim no one has disputed — finally closed in June. But Federal Boulevard is nothing if not efficient in reclaiming, renovating and moving on. After a few early signs of a new tenant (the faux-stone trim…
Sana Hamelin used to be a corporate litigator. Now she’s an entrepreneur looking to create Denver’s first cat cafe. Cats, coffee, books and art would all be featured at the Denver Cat Company — if Hamelin can just raise the money to open her place. Currently her crowdfunding campaign is…
No. 84 Chips and Dip at Euclid Hall 1317 14th Street 303-595-4255 When the phrase “chips and dip” appears on a restaurant menu, your eyes tend to slide right past to more interesting options. At Euclid Hall, though, that would be a mistake. As with all the dishes at this…
Old Fisherman’s Grotto, a bustling California tourist attraction, recently posted a sign prohibiting strollers, high chairs, booster seats, loud kids and crying babies. While some parents complained, Jenn Wohletz applauded the move by restaurant owner Chris Shake, and offered her own five reasons why cranky kids should be banned from…
Bigger isn’t always better, which is why Mizuna alum Royce Oliveira chose a 628-square-foot location on East Colfax Avenue for the home of To the Wind Bistro, the restaurant he opened this past March with his wife and pastry chef, Leanne Adamson. “We were looking for something small,” Oliveira explains…
