Santiago's Mexican Restaurant

From her first store in Brighton to a Front Range flotilla of Mexican fast-food outlets, over the past 27 years, Santiago’s owner Carmen Morales has helped make breakfast burritos and green chile into Denver’s most iconic dishes. Cheap, hearty, fresh and filling are what Denverites crave in their Mexican eats, and Santiago’s fulfills all of those requirements, offering family recipes that evolved in New Mexico before coming to Colorado. Yes, the green chile’s orange — the color of a Rocky Mountain sunset — but the fire of the Hatch chiles shines through, waking up palates and sleepy brains every morning throughout the metro area.