Outside, the temperature was dropping — but inside Lola, we might as well have been on a beach in Mexico. That’s because chef Jamey Fader and guest chef Roberto Solis were hosting a Yucatan dinner, full of the tastes of that region . “We’re all just chefs,” Fader said as…
Before the Balloon Boy story blew up around the globe, Colorado’s Najibullah Zazi was reportedly getting ready to blow up New York City. Our hometown terrorist is now being held without bail in New York on charges of conspiring to detonate explosives in the United States; his father has a…
I was at Lola, 1575 Boulder Street, twice on Sunday — for brunch (the chicken-fried pork special) and dinner (the Sunday paella special). And you’d think I might have had my fill of Lola for a while — but you’d be wrong. Because tonight, Lola is hosting a Yucatan Dinner,…
Ryan Frazier made a smart move, even though his announcement last Thursday that he was switching from a run for the U.S. Senate to go for the 7th Congressional District seat currently occupied by Ed Perlmutter was completely overshadowed by a certain silver balloon. But someone took notice: The Colorado…
Aurora was slated to get its very own Smashburger on Wednesday, October 21, but the opening of the store at 2630 South Parker Road has been delayed — “a permitting issue that the landlord is working through,” according to Julie Noyes, spokeswoman for the homegrown chain. When the Aurora outlet…
Even Balloon Boy couldn’t knock our hunt for a medical-marijuana reviewer out of the national news. Yesterday, NPR’s Sunday show ran a piece about our quest, resulting in still more applications coming in from across the country. But sorry, folks: We’re looking for a Colorado resident, someone who can identify…
Even as the area north of downtown gentrifies, certain problematic pockets remain. The area around 22nd and Arapahoe streets, for example, where the manager of the brand-new (and beautiful) Lobby American Grille, located in the space in the historic Paris Hotel at 2191 Arapahoe Street that was once occupied by…
Okay, so Falcon Heene was never in the balloon. But why wasn’t he in school yesterday? That’s a question for Rico Munn, who’s done good work during his two years as executive director of the Department of Regulatory Affairs, and yesterday was appointed by Governor Bill Ritter to head the…
Cliff Young, whose eponymously named restaurant transformed the Denver dining scene, is back in business at the Diamond Cabaret, where his CY Steak opened this week at 1222 Glenarm Place. It was a soft opening — in a room full of hard bodies. While strip clubs across the country are…
Ryan Frazier is trading in a clunker in favor of a much sleeker vehicle. Six months after the two-term Aurora City Councilman announced that he was running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, he’s pulling out of that race and making a fast course correction for the 7th…
In an industry when a restaurant reaching its first birthday is considered noteworthy, the run of the Brook Forest Inn is nothing short of remarkable. Edwin and Marie Welz, immigrants who arrived in this country in 1910 and took over a homestead near Evergreen, worked on transforming the place into…
When we learned that Joe Rogan, former host of Fear Factor, had moved to metro Denver, we offered up our top ten list of very scary things for newcomers to Colorado. Number 4? Animal Encounters: “As houses sprawl across formerly uninhabited areas, the animals that used to live where your…
Hospoda, the restaurant that billed itself as “friendly beer house,” has closed after a good effort in a bad location, at 3763 Wynkoop Street (right off Brighton Boulevard), the former home of the Wynkoop Grill. Jason Sheehan loved Hospoda it when I dragged him there — the ambience was a…
“Olives date back to before the invention of the written language,” notes the web page for the Twisted Olive. “We’re here to add a new chapter in Olive history, a fun and tasteful one. It starts with redefining and twisting the Olive’s role in entertainment, cuisine, nightlife and most importantly…you!”…
Jeff Peckman has had a tough month: First, David Letterman’s all-too-earthly horn-dog behavior made big news — and bit into the value of a clip from Letterman’s June 10, 2008 UFO interview with Peckman that’s prominently featured on the campaign web page for the Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission. That’s the concept…
This past weekend the largest gay-rights demonstration in close to a decade descended on Washington, D.C., where lawmakers may finally approve the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a measure that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the categories covered by federal hate crime…
Yesterday was a long day in Idledale, the tiny town in the foothills where Dawn Engle and Ivan Suvanjieff put up their feet when they’re not pounding the pavement on behalf of PeaceJam, the non-profit they founded over a dozen years ago that links up youth from around the world…
In the 21 months since John Parr, Sandy Widener and their daughter, Chase Parr, were killed in a horrific car accident, I’ve trained myself not to grab the phone to call Sandy, a wonderful writer and college pal who was one of the founders of Westword, to hoot over some…
Is this the most attention you’ve ever gotten?” asked the national reporter. Westword got bomb threats when we broke the news about University of Colorado coach Bill McCartney’s daughter being pregnant by dying quarterback Sal Aunese, a story that’s gotten a second life on ESPN now that their son is…
The Tilted Kilt has been called a Celtic Hooters — a label that its Arizona-based owners don’t appreciate, we hear. They prefer “The Best Looking Sports Pub You’ve Ever Seen,” the slogan on the web site. A sports pub with waitresses who wear naughty school-girl skirts. There are already 22…
Twenty-five years ago, the Department of Defense took over 235,000 acres of ranchland in southeastern Colorado — the largest condemnation of private property in the country. And the Army’s not done yet. Six years ago, word surfaced that the feds would try to add another 400,000 acres to the Pinon…
Last March, chef/restaurateur Kevin Taylor announced that in September 2009, he would be opening Kevin Taylor Steak in the aloft Hotel at Arista in Broomfield. It would be his seventh restaurant (if you count the one in Central City’s Teller House, which is only open in the summer), one that…
