Reader: Pizza from Chipotle? That's one of the greatest things this country has done (and it's definitely one of our top-ten restaurant stories of the year)

On Tuesday night, we shared the worst-kept secret in town: Chipotle Mexican Grill partnered with the founders of Frasca Food and Wine, Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, to bring a fast-casual version of Boulder's Pizzeria Locale to Denver -- and maybe one day, the rest of the world. After all,...

By Patricia Calhoun

December 20, 2013

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On Tuesday night, we shared the worst-kept secret in town: Chipotle Mexican Grill partnered with the founders of Frasca Food and Wine, Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, to bring a fast-casual version of Boulder's Pizzeria Locale to Denver -- and maybe one day, the rest of the world. After all, there are now more than a thousand outlets of Chipotle, which got its start on East Evans Avenue twenty years ago. But for the moment, the partners are focusing on opening a couple more Pizzeria Locale stores in metro Denver. As the Wall Street Journal describes the start of the collaboration in a story titled "Pizzerias try to apply the Chipotle formula":

After opening Frasca almost 10 years ago, Messrs. Mackinnon-Patterson and Stuckey opened the sit-down pizzeria in 2011 with waiters, a large menu of Neapolitan pizzas and a well-researched wine list.
"When I walked in, I thought, 'Oh my gosh, what if they did this in a Chipotle format?' " says Steve Ells, Chipotle chairman and CEO and a longtime friend and Frasca customer.

What indeed?

The comments have been coming faster than the pizzas coming out of that special oven at the Pizzeria Locale at 550 Broadway -- more than 250 at last count. They range from a simple "yum" to pleas to bring the concept to their cities. (Read them here.) And then there's this from Ryan Beeler:

Pizza from Chipotle?!?!? oh my god! this has the potential to be one of the greatest things this country has ever done, next to women's suffrage and the civil rights movement and stuff, but other than that....

We're not sure the partnership deserves a spot in civics textbooks, but it definitely ranks as one of the ten biggest restaurant stories of the year. What else would you put on the list? What were the most important developments on the Denver dining scene in 2013?

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Patricia Calhoun is editor-in-chief of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. She’s also received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists. Patricia is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS 12's public affairs roundtable, which has won two Emmys.

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