City Spirit Reunion will celebrate that hipster hangout on Friday

Every generation of hipsters has its hangout, and from 1984 until 1997 in Denver, that place was City Spirit, an eclectic cafe that opened at 1434 Blake Street four years before the Lower Downtown Historic District was formally established, and long before LoDo became the mainstream mainstay it is today…

Vance Johnson closes Epicurious in Grand Junction

The restaurant business has not been too friendly to Vance Johnson, one of the legendary Three Amigos who helped get the Denver Broncos to the Super Bowl in 1989. (The other two Amigos were Ricky Nattiel and Mark Jackson.) After some rocky years, Johnson moved to the Western Slope, where…

Reader: Forget green chile — nothing beats New Mexico red

Although Denver diners are obsessed with green chile, red chile has its fans, too. As Gretchen Kurtz notes, “Red chile has an even deeper, more intriguing flavor, as fruits and vegetables left to reach their fully ripe potential tend to do.” She couldn’t get the Curtis Park Creamery, which she…

Reader: Movie theater is no place to wear a “Joker” mask

Hint: If you’re going to a movie in Boulder, do not wear a “Joker” mask in the theater. Officials with the Boulder Police Department reported Sunday night that they had arrested a seventeen-year-old male (he’s a part-time University of Colorado student whose name is not being released because he’s a…

Reader: Jerry Garcia mural no trade for Johnny Cash

Denver lost two institutions last week: Bender’s went dark after an eight-year run — Quixote’s True Blue is moving into the space — and the mural of Johnny Cash that graced the side of the building, painted by Tommy Nahulu, is also history. Johnny is being replaced by Jerry Garcia,…

Art Meets Beast this weekend at MCA Denver

MCA Denver, 1485 Delgany Street, is hosting its second Art Meets Beast festival, honoring the history of the bison. The two-day celebration begins tonight at 6:30 p.m. with a workshop led by Pete Marczyk of Marczyk Fine Foods, who will carve an entire bison; the vegetarian option is a film…

Amendment 64 passage lights up marijuana convention in Denver

The green rush is on — 150 years after fortune-hunters rushed to the Rockies in search of gold. On Tuesday, Colorado voters passed Amendment 64, cementing this state’s reputation as the cannabis capitol of the country. That vote should certainly light up a convention scheduled months ago that starts today…

Reader: Bagels at Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli are an insult to humanity

It’s been a good run, but at the end of November Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli will close its original spot in Highland. Brooklyn-to-Denver transplants Heidi and Steve Naples opened the place in the summer of 1997, and today a chain of franchised soup-and-sandwich Heidi’s outlets stretch from California to Maine. But…