After more than a hundred years of supplying restaurants in the West with discount groceries, California-based Smart & Final has started SmartCo Foods, and is opening its first five stores in various Colorado locations. Smart & Final already owns the Henry’s, SunHarvest and Cash & Carry grocery stores.Two of the…
Technology has improved nearly every aspect of our lives, and now, at long last, it’s been applied to mankind’s greatest venture: the search for cheap drinks. Village Voice Media Holdings LLC, the parent company of this paper, and GoTime.com have partnered to bring you Happy Hours, the premier smart-phone application…
The economic downturn resulted in one welcome effect: an upswing in restaurants offering deals on drinks, deals on appetizers, and ever-happier happy hours. The list that follows, compiled by our Cafe Society staff (e-mail us at cafe@westword.com), includes our fifty favorite happy hours, ranging from A to Z and noteworthy…
I love headcheese, sweetbreads, escargot and foie gras as much as the next person, but there’s something about the comforting simplicity of a baked potato that I can’t resist, especially when it’s chock-full of BACON! Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer…
Last week it was a Mexican-themed patio party. This week, O’s Steak & Seafood, 10600 Westminster Boulevard, is doing it up with local beer. The restaurant, located in the Westin Hotel in Westminster, is inaugurating a “Colorado Beer Garden” on its patio this Friday. Executive sous chef Christoph Schoettle says…
Once upon a time, a man named Phil Anson, who enjoyed rock-climbing in Eldorado Canyon and made a killer burrito, stumbled upon a business idea: He packed his homemade burritos into a cooler to sell to his fellow climbers. And they were good. But Anson realized this wasn’t the best…
The economic downturn had one welcome effect: an upswing in restaurant offering deals on drinks, deals on appetizers, and ever happier happy hours. This week’s Westword features our fifty favorite happy hours, which run the gamut from A (Appaloosa Bar & Grill, which has very expansive happy hours with very…
What, so it’s our fault? Last week, I broke the news that Frank Bonanno was adding a fifth restaurant to his culinary kingdom, a French-American comfort-food joint that would be taking up residence later this summer in a “biker bar” that required “a huge transformation” — words that came directly…
The Armed Forces are fighting the battle of the bulge: 27 percent of all Americans aged 17 to 24 are too fat to join the military, according to a recent study titled “Too Fat to Fight.” And retired generals have fingered a steady school-lunch diet of fried foods and oil-slicked…
When I saw the bottle of Galliano, an Italian liqueur, on the bar, I had a flashback to college when my favorite drink was a Harvey Wallbanger. I asked Matt, the bartender, to make me an updated version of my old favorite and he came up with this beauty. Can…
Pinkberry, the international fro-yo chainlet with a frenzied cult following, is opening its first Colorado store on Thursday, May 27 at 1000 South Colorado Boulevard, in the small mall anchored by Barnes and Noble. “Colorado is an exciting new market for Pinkberry, and a strategic part of our marketing plans,”…
Faster than you can say “Spicy Pickle,” the Denver-based regional sandwich chain has lost its president. Less than a month after Marc Geman became president of Spicy Pickle Franchising Inc., he has resigned the position as well as his membership on the company’s board “to pursue other interests,” according to…
That bottomless bowl of bun, stockpiled with scraps of char-grilled meats, smoky shrimp, Vietnamese egg rolls, pickled ribbons of carrots and daikon, crushed peanuts and stretchy vermicelli noodles, proves, yet again, why the Vietnamese are responsible for some of the world’s most savagely good food. Can you guess where I’m…
As part of an upcoming photo essay project spotlighting Denver restaurant pros whose tatts are as prevalent as their dissections, burns, blisters, knife slashes and stabs, we promised that we’d post some of the best ink on the Cafe Society blog…
A restaurant that sounds like the motor sports centered version of a TGI Fridays is expanding into Colorado. The Sharon, Pennsylvania-based Quaker Steak & Lube has one of the most confusing and vaguely lewd names we’ve ever heard of, and its bringing its wings and ribs and steaks to Westminster…
Oh, brother! Jim and Angelo Karagas bought an old saloon at 2376 15th Street more than forty years ago, transforming it into My Brother’s Bar, an institution so beloved in Denver that it needs no sign. But for more than twenty years, it did have an actual sibling: While Jim…
If you’re in the mood for beauty without the beast, play like Lewis and Clark and head to the great northwest, where Portland is home to the first vegan restaurant/gentleman’s club. Johnny Diablo is the owner of Casa Diablo, and says it’s his mission to “save as many creatures from…
“Oh my god, it was crazy,” says Aaron Le, his voice erupting into fits of delirious laughter. “It was the most overwhelming day I’ve every had, but also one of the funnest.” Le opened his second outpost of Pho 95 (the original is located at 1002 South Federal Boulevard) last…
Boulder-based Noosa Yoghurt (Don’t forget that “h” — It’s an Australian thing.), formerly just available for home delivery via Morning Fresh Dairy in Bellvue, has been gradually unveiling its Australian-style yogurt (typically denser and sweeter than typical yogurt) across the state and elsewhere. Since launching the business last November, the…
We thought doughnuts were the new cupcakes, but it looks like cupcakes are here to stay. A specialty bakeshop featuring 45 different flavors of the mini-cakes opened Saturday at 550 Grant Street in Denver. Franchisee and Stapleton resident Carrie Bach says she sold over 1,200 cupcakes during this weekend’s opening…
“We’re not changing a whole lot; we’re just making improvements and expanding our selection,” says Nina Stajcar, promotions manager of Loaves N Ladles. That’s the new name for the former Fisher Clark Deli, 723 South University Boulevard, which owner Mary Clark recently put on the market so she could sojourn…
Yesterday, to celebrate Mother’s Day, I inhaled a green chile-cloaked breakfast burrito from El Taco de Mexico and then spent the afternoon sunning myself on another restaurant patio with a margarita, chips and salsa, guacamole and a plate of blue corn-fried oysters that go for dirt cheap during happy hour…
