Atomic Cowboy Celebrates Twenty Years of Biscuits, Burgers and Slices

Beloved Colorado-born triple threat Atomic Cowboy, which is also home to Denver Biscuit Company and Fat Sully's, is celebrating twenty years of serving bigger-than-your-head slices, stacked biscuit sandwiches and one of the tastiest smashburgers in town, all within four funky walls.

"Denver has kind of evolved with us over the last twenty years," notes founder Drew Shader, the foodie genius at the heart of Atomic Cowboy's trio of American comfort foods. Winner of many Best of Denver honors including 2023 Readers' Choice Best Burger and 2024 Readers' Choice Best Breakfast, Atomic Cowboy's business model has been stable over the past two decades of industry changes and shifts in culinary trends.

"We're a comfortable, casual place that serves really approachable food that's really good," Shader says. "I think it all comes down to really craveable, amazing food."

The now nine-location company will be celebrating two decades of greasy goodness with several in-house promotions December 4-15. On December 4, patrons can indulge in a buy-one-get-one-free biscuit entree deal or enjoy a burger, waffle fries and a beer for $20.
A new menu item called the Josephine will also be introduced in honor of the anniversary. This sweet and spicy biscuit sandwich features jalapeño cream cheese, bacon, buttermilk chicken, cheddar cheese and raspberry jam. In addition, Atomic Cowboy has partnered with local distillery Boulder Spirits to craft a ready-to-drink bottled Old Fashioned that serves as an homage to Atomic Cowboy's roots as a PBR and whiskey bar.

Atomic Cowboy started as a dive bar in the early 2000s on East Colfax when a young and hungry Shader took the reins in 2004 after a college football injury sent him into a career 180. "I always had a passion for food and restaurants, and never really had an opportunity to do anything with it, because football was pretty consuming," shares Shader. He enjoyed running the bar and quickly fell in love with the industry, but after a few years, he found something was missing. "I just got burned out and bored after a couple of years of slinging drinks," notes Shader. "That's when I developed Fat Sully's in 2008."
That missing piece turned out to be a classic New York slice. At the time, Denver's culinary scene was significantly lacking in late-night bites — pizza in particular — and the addition of a pizza kitchen proved to be a success. "We went through a transformation from a bar, to a bar that served pizza, to a bar that was a pizza restaurant," recounts Shader. Fat Sully's also eventually became the kitchen through which Atomic serves its popular Lights Out smashburger.

Once Atomic Cowboy proved its food-service chops, the Biscuit Bus followed in 2010. "We started building a food truck for a concept that we were going to call the Denver Biscuit Company. And there were no plans [for] it to ever be served out of the bar," says Shader. But the biscuits soon amassed a cult-like following and were integrated as another Atomic Cowboy staple. The restaurant had effectively, and sustainably, stretched itself to an eighteen-hour-a-day model ,dishing out slices to night owls, biscuit breakfasts to the early birds, and fantastic burgers to anyone in between.

"All of our food concepts were just a selfish way for me to get the food I wanted," admits Shader with a laugh. Denver Biscuit Company's flaky and fluffy Southern flavors are rooted in his Florida upbringing. "I just couldn't find biscuits out here. Couldn't find biscuits, grits, all the Southern food that I grew up with in Florida. So I was filling that need for great biscuits, great biscuit sandwiches, chicken biscuits."
Today, Atomic Cowboy boasts nine locations in Colorado and Kansas City and can now advertise some major numbers.

During 2023, the business sold over 350,000 slices of pizza, 155,000 Franklin sandwiches and 60,000 of its iconic cinnamon rolls. In total, it used a staggering 150,000 pounds of butter.

Shader attributes the success of the business to the incredible food, but more important, the incredible people. "The food has to be perfect, but if you don't have great people serving the food and amazing people cooking the food, none of it can happen," he concludes.

Atomic Cowboy is open from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday at its Colfax, Tennyson and Broadway locations. For more hours and locations, visit theatomiccowboy.com.