The Original Chubby's Burger Drive-Inn

Denver transplants, heed our advice: Acquire an opinion on green chile, and quickly, for no food in the Mile High City is as fervently debated among friends. While many greens are contenders, the Chubby’s chile is legendary. Stella Cordova took over the Chubby Burger Drive-Inn in the 1960s, keeping the burgers and fries and adding her own gravy-like green chile, spicy enough to impart a mouthful of flames. Over the years, several members of Stella’s sizable extended family have worked the line at Chubby’s; many opened their own spinoffs, each claiming to be the only one to whom Stella gave the real green chile recipe. Stella herself presided over the original Chubby’s until 2009, when she passed away at age 100, and the restaurant, which moved into a new structure on the same lot in northwest Denver in late 2016, continues to pay homage to her legacy. Our favorite time to go is after 2 a.m., when a cross-section of Denver bar-hoppers and nightshift-workers line up for burritos, cheese fries and chile-injected grilled cheese.