Aloft’s JP Krause on why Casa Bonita rules

JP Krause Aloft Broomfield 8300 Arista Place, Broomfield 303-635-2000 www.aloftbroomfielddenver.com This is part one of my interview with JP Krause, exec chef of Aloft Broomfield. Part two of our interview will run in this space tomorrow. “Right. My name. It’s John Patrick, but ever since high school, I’ve gone by…

Red Robin’s Burger Works opens at Auraria campus

Denver just got another Red Robin’s Burger Works, with another Freestyle Coke machine, so that more folks can be controlled by Skynet treated to Burger Works’ signature craft-your-own-burgers — with drinks designed to match. This location — the fourth in Colorado — opened Monday in the new Hotel and Hospitality…

Reader: Cherry Creek is the Indian burial ground of restaurants

Before we move on to controversies in other restaurant neighborhoods, we’re taking one more turn around Cherry Creek. That’s where Rodney’s closed this weekend, prompting Denver Dave to say that Cherry Creek North is “just becoming another food court in any mall USA.” That rallied the CCN defenders, including JPL35,…

Would you pay $12.99 a pint for ice cream?

Thirteen bucks is more than twice the amount you’d pay for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s or Häagen-Dazs at the grocery store, so how good would ice cream have to be to convince your average foodie to spoon over that kind of cash? The answer? As good as Jeni’s…

Chef Beau Simmons out at Jonesy’s EatBar

After two and half years spearheading the line at Jonesy’s EatBar, chef Beau Simmons is no longer in the kitchen. It all went down last week, he says, when owner Leigh Jones pulled him aside and suggested that it was time for the two to part ways, a decision, he…

Guess where I’m eating carne adovada?

My accountant recently turned me on to this west-side suburban Mexican joint that’s been a fixture in the ‘hood for years, and while we don’t always see eye-to-eye when it comes to food, he steered me in the right direction here, although ordering the carne adovada was all my idea…

Original Pancake House is reason to rise and shine

It’s pretty effin’ rare that I eat at a restaurant and can’t find anything to complain about. I’ve dined at countless restaurants in my 35 years on this shiny blue orb, and I’ve seen plenty of good, bad and ugly. I’ve had meals that were overcooked, undercooked, cocked-up so badly…

Guess where I’m eating crab and corn fritters?

Big — BIG — portions of Southern-inspired cuisine are on the menu at this newcomer, where just about everything is done on a large scale. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Guess Where posts is entered into a…

Ikea’s snack attack: Why is Swedish mustard so effin’ good?

After an afternoon of shopping for cheap to moderately-priced unassembled end tables and bathroom shelves at Ikea — a trip that usually lasts into the early evening if you start on the top floor — there is one last spot you really can’t miss: the Swedish food market. This section…

Lime closes its Landmark location

The Lime at Landmark has dried up. Since they’d signed the lease on the spot in 2007, the troubled Landmark development had gone through bankruptcy and assorted banks, and owners Pam Savage Sims and Curt Sims decided not to try renegotiating the deal again. “The latest problem was we were…

Longo’s Subway Tavern reaches the end of the line Sunday

“It’s been a good run and we’ve had a great time here, but it’s just time to move on,” says Barb Longo. And so Sunday evening, Longo’s Subway Tavern will close…after 52 years. Barb’s been there for 38 of them: She started working at the Subway when she was eighteen…

Top five menu items I’d choose if I paid 50k a plate for dinner

Mitt Romney’s “The 47 Percent Feels Entitled to Eat Free Cake” vid clip had me thinking about a lot of things, but my brain kept inexplicably drifting back to Mittens’ fifty-thousand-dollars-a-plate fundraiser, and wondering what sort of meal you get when you dump that kind of green. I’m of the…

Oscar Mayer bacon barterer is living high on the hog

Everybody loves bacon, but what would you give up in exchange for a precious slice of pig? That was the question Oscar Mayer set out to answer when the company loaded comedian and actor John Sankey with 3,000 pounds of its new Thick Cut Bacon (that’s about $20,000 of pig)…