Best or Bust!

We were seated at our favorite table at the Buckhorn Exchange, right beneath the two-headed calf and not far from the whale’s penis, discussing the relative merits of elk and rattlesnake, when a cameraman came by. He was filming ten of Denver’s best places for the Democratic National Convention, he…

The State of This City

On Tuesday, John Hickenlooper delivered his fifth State of the City speech since the former geologist/brewpub owner/raconteur became the upset choice for mayor of Denver. That a man with that resumé could pull off such an upset is certainly one of the best things about this city: Anything seems possible…

Arts Festival Too

Tambien will be right in the belly of the beast this weekend as the Cherry Creek Arts Festival swallows up the area surrounding the restaurant at 250 Steele Street. So Tambien’s owners have decided to keep that belly very, very full. Today through Sunday, they’re offering the Mexican barbecue and…

What the Hell’s Up at the Former Mel’s?

At this time last year, fans were still bemoaning the closure of Mel’s in Cherry Creek. But there’s been a lot of action since then. Mel Master turned his two Montecito restaurants into reincarnations of Mel’s — but now, as detailed here, plans to sell majority interest in the Mel’s…

What’s All the Buzz on Agwa?

Last Friday, my friend Greg got an e-mail from a buddy in L.A. who was all excited about a new liquor he was planning to try that weekend that’s made with cocaine — sort of. Greg and his girlfriend got online to research this European concoction that’s been compared to…

Broadway Melody: Delite

Technically, Delite does not have a patio — but the front of this brand-new, storefront bar consists of garage-style doors that open wide on these beautiful nights. And thanks to alert management, smokers are kept far away from the front door, guaranteeing that the night air coming through that open…

Rene Marie’s Star-Spangled Bungle

The city’s abuzz over Rene Marie’s surprise decision to replace “The Star-Spangled Banner” with the Black National Anthem at yesterday’s State of the City speech at the Wellington E. Webb Building. A surprise to everyone else in the room, Mayor John Hickenlooper included, but not to the jazz singer. Marie’s…

Face the Nation? Let’s Face Reality

On CBS’s Face the Nation this last Sunday, genial host Bob Schieffer asked General Wesley Clark to talk about John McCain’s war record, specifically his criticisms as to McCain’s readiness to serve in the highest office, and how that compares to Barack Obama’s. Fair enough. But what it turned into…

Meat and Greet: Sullivan’s Steakhouse

Grab a seat on Sullivan’s sidewalk patio and prepare to meat and greet. On weeknights, this stretch of LoDo can be relatively quiet, if you want a more intimate summer evening. But on weekends, both the bar inside and the neighborhood surrounding Sullivan’s are really jumping. Adding to the action…

Resurrecting the Colorado Countess

Yesterday, I browsed the women’s page of the New York Times — from August 4, 1901 — where the very latest “Gowns Worn by Visitors to Our Town” were detailed. Mrs. E. Reeves Merritt, for example, wore ” a simple white pique gown” with a skirt that cleared the floor…

Hell’s Kitchen: The Game

I am not a fan of Hell’s Kitchen, the TV show. It is, without a doubt, the worst, most asinine, most ridiculously overdone suckfest of a reality cooking show on television: a horrifically over-shot and over-dramatized sixty minutes with half of its runtime taken up by commercials; another ten minutes…

The Return of the Denver Daisy

Last weekend, on day seven, my second attempt at raising a crop of Denver dailies took a tumble off the deck. Although the cause seemed lost, I swept up some of the dirt and tossed it back in the pot. And on June 30, lo and behold, a slender seedling…

The Convention: Fit to Be Fried

With Barack Obama slated to accept the Democratic presidential nomination on August 28, the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, black TV networks will be all over the convention in Denver. In her piece in the June 30 Denver Post, Joanne Ostrow quotes TV…

Keep This Under Your Hat

“It was a most forlorn and desolate-looking metropolis,” Albert D. Richardson wrote in Beyond the Mississippi: From the Great River to the Great Ocean, of his trip to Denver in 1859. “If my memory is faithful, there were five women in the whole gold region; and the appearance of a…

Don’t Look Now, But It’s “You’ve Got the Look”

For the sleep-deprived, one of the benefits of being awake at 4 a.m. Saturday morning is being able to catch a rerun of Gunsmoke on TVLand. But that wasn’t Miss Kitty on the screen this weekend. No, it was the fourth installment of You’ve Got the Look, a train wreck…

Life’s a Beach: Emerald Isle Restaurant

Driving back up Parker Road after a long, hot day on the southestern plains Saturday, the temptation to brake for the Emerald Isle was almost overwhelming. Not just because the bar itself is such a classic roadhouse — but because the patio behind it may just be the closest Denver…

Shooting From the Lip with Jon Caldara

Saturday, June 28, was a good day for the Independence Institute. Its sixth annual ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) Party attracted a record number of participants to the Kiowa Creek Sporting Club for the “most politically incorrect” event of the year. But while Jon Caldara’s group advertised the 2008 AFT…

Wildfires Stop Ultrarunner Tony K in His Tracks

For months Colorado Springs ultrarunner Tony Krupicka has been focused on a single challenge: getting ready for one of the most prestigious events in his sport, the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run in northern California, scheduled for the weekend of June 27-28. But despite his string of unbeaten (and often…

Ritter Meets the Press

Talk about Cool Biz! Governor Bill Ritter was apparently very, very serious when he and Denver mayor John Hickenlooper whipped off their ties last Thursday to show how sincere they are about saving energy in government buildings this summer with their Cool Biz initiative. Because when he went on Meet…

McCain’s Vietcong Endorsement: Believe It…or Not!

Let’s get this clear up front: This is not some sort of liberal swift-boating. The fact that John McCain’s Vietcong jailer has backhandedly endorsed him for president isn’t — or shouldn’t be, anyway — anything more than one of those weird political stories. McCain spent over five years as a…

Out at Second Home

I’m a dumbass. In the June 26 Bite Me, while further excoriating Sage Restaurant Group for its miss at Second Home, I mistakenly lumped the Rialto Cafe in among the properties that Sage has taken over. In actuality, Rialto is (and always has been) run by Concept Restaurants, while Sage…