Rise + Dine Celebrates Brunch With Attempt at World's Largest Bloody Mary Bar

If you think you’ve seen a food festival for nearly everything, you’re not wrong. Ticketed culinary events have been growing in popularity and becoming ever more niche, with something — be it ciders, burgers or tacos — to tickle every one of your tastebuds. The newest addition to Colorado’s culinary calendar? Rise + Dine, Denver’s first annual breakfast bonanza. Part of the larger Denver Food + Wine Festival, the shindig on Sunday, September 11, at the Curtis Hotel will be the brunch to end all brunches, with 500 of your closest friends noshing on morning delights from more than fifteen of the area’s top restaurants.

And of course, it wouldn’t be brunch without a hair of the dog or two. Mimosas and other breakfast cocktails will be on hand, but if you really want to go big or go home, Rise + Dine hopes to break the world record for the largest Bloody Mary Bar on the planet. The current record has fifty toppings, and Rise + Dine hopes to smash that with 57 accoutrements and garnishes, including crazy toppings like deviled eggs, spicy pepperoni courtesy of Il Porcellino, pizza slices, chicken tenders, fried mac and cheese, and crab cakes. If we weren’t such brunch fans, we’d say that’s a meal in itself.
“We’re so excited to host Denver’s first annual brunch festival. Rise + Dine will showcase delicious offerings from some of the city’s favorite brunch joints, all in one place," says Nicolle Thompson of the Colorado Restaurant Association, a co-sponsor of the Denver Food + Wine Festival.  "We know this event will showcase that Denver’s restaurant scene is slaying it on their brunch menus.”

Other bites will include the Almost Famous lemon-poppyseed-blueberry pancakes with salted caramel butter and maple syrup from Tom’s Urban; beignets from Syrup; confections from Glazed and Confuzed Donuts; New York-style bagels from Rosenberg’s (which is still operating out of a pop-up); and many more sweet and savory treats.

The festival will run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on September 11 in the main ballroom of the Curtis Hotel; pajamas are encouraged to help set the mood. Tickets are $55 and can be purchased from the Denver Food & Wine Festival website.

Our only question: Why did it take so long for someone to think of this?