Fire on the Mountain Debuts Second Wing Joint This Weekend

One of Denver's favorite wing joints, Fire on the Mountain, is about to double down on the fiery flappers. The Portland eatery that made its Denver debut in 2012 at 3801 West 32nd Avenue, will open its second Colorado location at 300 South Logan Street on Sunday, August 25.

Owners Andrea West and Craig Oberlink got involved in the chicken wing business after their friends, Jordan Busch and Sara Sawicki, opened the first Fire on the Mountain in Portland in 2005. "We used to all be river guides and used to all go to live music together," West explains.

When she and Oberlink moved to Denver, the idea of expanding FotM came with them. Sawicki and Busch have since added two more locations in Oregon (one of which is a full brewery-restaurant), and the two Denver outposts are the only others in the group. The common theme is Grateful Dead music and a dozen different wing sauces.

West explains that Busch is the recipe mastermind, so sauce ideas and other basic menu items come from Portland, but she and Oberlink have also put a Denver spin on their food to keep things a little more local. The new Fire on the Mountain will offer the same "tried and true classics" and free-range chicken that the restaurant's fans have come to expect, West adds, but the main difference will be a bigger bar with a deeper tap list of local craft beers. "We'll have some funky sours and rare beers — some very cool, hard-to-find things," she notes.


Fire on the Mountain is one of several new businesses to occupy the renovated Trevino Mortuary building, where a second branch of coffee shop the Molecule Effect is also slated to open. "It's a beautiful 120-year-old brick building," West points out. "It's an old Denver landmark that we've turned into a fun new chicken wing joint."

The seating capacity is about the same as at the West Highland original, but Oberlink points out that the dining area is much less fragmented than it is in the Victorian cottage his first restaurant occupies, so the new one feels bigger, and he and West were able to design the entire interior from the ground up.

Everything's all set for the Sunday opening, with murals on the walls, stained-glass light fixtures from an artist in Portland, and garage doors that roll up to make the place an indoor-outdoor space, since there's no actual patio.

Beginning Sunday, August 25, Fire on the Mountain will be open from 11 a.m. daily, closing at 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.