Governor Bill Ritter will celebrate Colorado Tourism Day this afternoon at the State Capitol, and there’s real reason to celebrate: The embarrassingly awful, Joan Rivers-ish “Let’s Talk Colorado” campaign has disappeared almost entirely, with just a few “Let’s Talk Colorado with the Locals Who Love It” videos buried on the…
The amazing story of Amazing Jake’s may have ended. Last year, Art Cormier — renowned in Denver both for Smiley’s laundromat and the Regency Hotel — took over the giant funplex at 1400 South Abilene Street in Aurora, saying he planned to change it to Smiley’s Fun Center. But many…
For a decade, Bash held down the corner at 1902 Blake Street — and also held down the growth of the area, neighbors complained, when it became the flashpoint for trouble at closing time. But now Bash has closed, as Backbeat writer Jon Solomon documented yesterday. And while club-goers are…
Back in 1984, Henry Mann started serving slices of New York-style pizza from a storefront at 1550 California Street. From those humble beginnings, Anthony’s Pizza & Pasta has grown into one of the city’s biggest home-town chains, with thirty outlets spread across the metro area (including the original, still open…
“Have a voice,” urges the web site for Denver’s new zoning code, which has just been given its first major overhaul in 53 years. “Attend a meeting.” And that’s a good idea — because nowhere on the very elaborate, informative site can Denverites actually voice their thoughts about the code…
First, there was My Brother’s Bar, which forty years ago last week moved into the building at 2376 15th Street that’s held a saloon since the 1870s. The bar remains under the watchful eye of Jim Karagas, who’d opened the Wazee Lounge and Supper Club at 1600 15th Street with…
Blues on Blake Supper Club, the ambitious restaurant/music venue at 1925 Blake Street, was going to be closed from January 1 to 15 for “retooling,” according to its web site. “You have spoken and we have listened. Our New Year’s resolution is to improve on our first year and to…
Jen Jasinski and Beth Gruitch, the talented duo behind Larimer Square restaurants Rioja and Bistro Vendome, have their eyes on a third spot around the corner, as Penny Parker reports in a good scoop this morning. According to the sign still on the former Martini Ranch at 1317 14th Street,…
BJ’s Port was a classic Five Points dive, “a glorious little place at 28th and Welton streets that recalls the raucous, energetic organ-trio clubs of Jimmy Smith’s prime — right down to the barbecued ribs and collard greens on the menu,” Bill Gallo wrote for Westword back in 2002. But…
The Colorado Legislature officially went to pot yesterday, when Senator Chris Romer finally introduced what remains of his medical-marijuana proposal: Senate Bill 109, which would put a strict lid on the relationship between a doctor and a would-be medical marijuana patient. The Colorado health department was at the Capitol, too,…
Big Papa’s BBQ will hold the official grand opening of its third location, at 5151 South Federal Boulevard, today — and there’s real reason to celebrate, says John Jensen, the director of operations. In April, the partners had just bought the building, an old Burger King, when their financing fell…
“We don’t want to become another Los Angeles,” Denver city councilman Charlie Brown said after touring that city’s pot dispensaries, which outnumbered L.A.’s Starbucks outlets, in urging his fellow councilmembers to come up with some regulations for Denver’s booming medical marijuana industry. Mission accomplished. Although L.A.’s city council had been…
The first time I cooked pot food was my freshman year in high school. Two friends and I pooled our money, bought a quarter bag of Texas dirt weed and some instant brownie mix, and headed to an adult-free house with an open kitchen. After putting aside enough pot for…
The horrors of Haiti hit close to home for Mary Nguyen, owner of Parallel 17: Her husband, Raphael Jouvenat, is from there. “Haiti has always been a poor country; a country with political turmoil and limited resources neglected by most of the world,” she writes. “However, it is the place…
Dan Jeune chose the most unlikely place to look for people who wanted to help Haiti: the bars of LoDo. Luke Turf watched Jeune, a native of Haiti whose father is a minister, recruit among the hat boys and frat boys, and then followed Jeune and the group he’d gathered…
The National Western Stock Show has doubled your drinking pleasure this year. Not only has the Cowboy Bar — the temporary saloon set up in the basement of the Hall of Education, right by the stalls where bulls are groomed — expanded, adding more than a dozen seats and space…
One day back in 1985, one of the Westword artists who lived at the edge of Highland — we called it Barbaria then — called with a tip about a great storefront burrito at this new place, Rosa Linda’s. He was right, and we quickly became lifetime fans of the…
Anyone who buys a DINR deck is a winner: For $50, you get 52 cards, each offering a $10 discount at a local, independent restaurant. You can buy the decks at any Tattered Cover location or at www.eatdenver.com — but you can also win one right here. Every Friday for…
The country’s largest parade in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. will kick off this morning in Denver, Colorado, a mid-sized city with a small black population, but a big record of fighting for equality. Wilma Webb, then a state legislator, was instrumental in pushing to make MLK Day a…
Shanahan’s just opened on Christmas Eve at 5085 South Syracuse Street, and there was a one-hour wait for a table in the 130-seat dining room, even with a reservation on Saturday night. But if you were waiting for the duck or osso bucco on the opening menu, you could wait…
Forget Charlie Sheen. The biggest scandal in Aspen these days involves Dan Sheridan, a 44-year-old singer musician who’s lived in that mountain town more than twenty years, doesn’t like some of the changes he’s seen, and describes them very eloquently in his song “Big Money.” But while Sheridan croons that…
Pork-chop-on-a-stick: It’s what’s for dinner. And lunch. And breakfast, if you can guess where I’m eating. Special bonus: Every Friday, anyone who gave the first correct answer to any of the week’s Where am I drinking/eating posts will be entered in a pool — and we’ll pull out one lucky…
