This Denver Whiskey Bar Decided to Update Its Menu. The Chef Turned to Reddit for Help

Less than a year into Little Wolf, the new single malt whiskey bar that took over the Cafe Brazil space last May, the owners knew they had a problem. 

“Everything we do in the kitchen’s gonna be geared towards pairing with our beverage program,” promised co-owner Jonathan Odde when Little Wolf opened. “It’s going to be some great food, and the pairings will be listed on the menu.”

But that curated food-pairing concept wound up falling flat with customers. 

“When we opened, we went kind of off in a direction that I just don’t think was right for where we needed to be,” Clarke Boyer, Little Wolf’s other co-owner, says now. “We had some Asian stuff and some Mexican stuff and American stuff. And it was kind of all over the place.”

The goal, he explains, was to emulate the “chaos cuisine” approach that attempts to blend global cuisines, techniques, and flavors in new and unexpected ways. Done right, it can result in unconventional home runs. But Boyer says he found out firsthand what happens when it’s done wrong. 

“People would look at our menu and they’d just be like, ‘It just doesn’t make sense.’ There was no theme to it,” he says, adding that as a result, “we just weren’t bringing in the level of business we needed to survive. We’ve got a big place to fill up here.”

So as any smart business owner does when things aren’t going as planned, the team pivoted…hard. From the discordant tone of the chaos cuisine menu, the owners turned to the relative comfort of the ubiquitous burger. 

Enter Flip & Howl Burger Kitchen, a sub-brand housed under the Little Wolf banner that’s designed to operate completely independently of the whiskey bar. 

To establish Flip & Howl, the owners turned to Odde’s brother, Chris Odde, who was previously owner and chef at Mojo99 Burgers and Odde’s Lounge speakeasy. He brought with him not only his burger expertise but his staff — including James Genotte of Pile High Burger food truck — and a creative energy that elevates what otherwise might be a routine burger concept. 

To wit: cold-smoked burgers. After watching a video of a Texas chef smoking meat patties with a traditional BBQ smoker and ice, Chris applied the idea to an old sliding fridge unit that he converted into a smoker by inserting the business end of a smoke infuser through a hole he drilled in the side. It cold holds at 37.9 degrees and absorbs smoke for 45 minutes before heading to the griddle.

“I wanted to do something different,” Chris says. “There’s not a lot of places doing smoked burgers here.”

The result is more of a smoke infusion than a full takeover of flavor; it’s not overpowering like a “cowboy burger.” Depending on your toppings and choice of sauce, you may not even realize the burger’s been smoked. But you will notice something different. 

But just introducing cold smoke wasn’t enough for Chris. In the short time he had to introduce the new menu, he turned to Reddit for additional input, braving the highly active and opinionated r/denverfood subreddit to get feedback on his choices.  

“I didn’t want to just make the same burger, so I wanted to see what other people wanted,” Chris explains. 

And by all accounts, he listened. Among the preferences that Redditors shared were for a smashed burger patty, simple toppings, and a burger that wasn’t too tall to eat… all features of what’s on the Flip & Howl menu today. But the recommendations didn’t stop there. 

“They helped me pick my bun, which we get from Harvest Moon [Baking Company], who will eventually develop a bun just for us,” Chris says. “A lot of people talked about Cooper Sharp cheese, which is a northeastern thing, but a lot said the way it reacts to the burger patty is magical. So they helped me decide to use that.”

Other suggestions included incorporating whole green chiles, a turkey burger, and a vegan burger (which he’s developing). 

Perhaps most important, they wanted something affordable. Flip & Howl’s first iteration of the basic burger listed for $9. The restaurant has since switched to using Colorado grass-fed wagyu beef, increasing the price to $10. But there remains a stripped-down burger going for only $8.

Since then, more than a few Redditors have visited to dine in the new concept IRL, then leave additional feedback in the original thread. 

The Flip & Howl concept emerged fast. Little Wolf shut its kitchen on a Sunday, and Flip & Howl went live the following Wednesday. The idea, says Boyer, is to operate in a dual-concept format. When entering the space, a sharp left brings you to Flip & Howl, while turning right puts you in the whiskey bar. You can order burgers and single malts in either, but each has its own identity. 

“It’s just like what Atomic Cowboy does with Fat Sully’s pizza,” says Boyer. “It gives us multiple channels to market. So it’s still the same place, but we can market the food side, and we can market the booze, but it’s all one place.”

Little Wolf / Flip & Howl Burger Kitchen is located at 4408 Lowell Boulevard, and is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. For more information, visit littlewolfdenver.com.