February a stout time at Mountain Sun and Vine Street Pub

Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery, at 1535 Pearl Street in Boulder, and its newer Denver sibling, Vine Street Pub, 1700 Vine Street, are celebrating Stout Month starting on February 1. “Ten of Mountain Sun’s taps will fade to black with local, regional and national versions of the rich, thick and…

How Steve Ells wrapped up the fast-casual niche

Good food starts with good ingredients, followed by good ideas, finished by good execution. And greatness follows only in the laborious improvement of all three. This, as I discuss in my review of Beaucoup Burrito, is about as close as you’re going to come to the core of kitchen wisdom…

Fast-casual comes unwrapped at Beaucoup Burrito

I have missed many things in favor of a meal. I’ve cut classes for sushi or cheeseburgers or just a shitty cup of diner coffee, skipped work for ­tacos, flown halfway across the country for a fish dinner, and abandoned like dead weight friends who weren’t interested in dim sum…

Say yes to the Y Knot Lounge

Roscoe likes me. I can tell by the way he stands dutifully next to my bar stool and follows me into the men’s room, where he attempts to lap up my piss before it splashes against the back of the urinal (despite my best attempts to balance on one leg…

Sometimes a sandwich is just a sandwich

I don’t know what it is with me. I can love a restaurant — seriously, get all twelve-year-old girl about it, just luuurve it to death — and write about it endlessly for a week, two weeks, whatever, and then not go back for two years. But when I hate…

Brio Tuscan Grille on its way to Cherry Creek

Brio Tuscan Grille will be taking the spot vacated by Macaroni Grill at 2500 East First Avenue in Cherry Creek. The national chain, which already has an outpost at 8441 Park Meadows Center Drive, is completely renovating the location; it’s slated to open this fall in the Cherry Creek Shopping Center.As…

Good news for GoodBelly, if you can stomach it

GoodBelly is growing like the beneficial bacteria — or probiotic — that makes your belly feel good. The pet of NextFoods, a Boulder-based health-food company, GoodBelly was recently included in the Los Angeles Examiner’s “Top Ten Best Food Product Introductions for 2008.” The product was created by Steve Demos, the…

Macaroni Grill closing in Cherry Creek

The Macaroni Grill located at 2500 East First Avenue will be closing after tonight’s service. Leasing problems seem to be the issue here — although it could also be some demented breath of fresh air leading to the right places closing due to the bad economy. An employee I talked…

Fox restaurants offering crafty deals for winter meals

Fox Restaurant Concepts, the people behind Bloom, NoRTH and Sauce Pizza & Wine, are featuring various deals through the end of March. NoRTH (190 Clayton Lane in Cherry Creek) and Bloom (1 West FlatIron Crossing Drive in FlatIron) are offering 50 percent off all bottles of wine — NoRTH on…

Mozart Bar gets ready for Mozart — or some piano player

Yesterday, a few friends marked what would have been Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 253rd birthday at the Mozart Lounge, 1417 Krameria Street. The bar was quiet — not unlike Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K. 545, for example.But behind the scenes at the Mozart, there’s plenty going on…

Snarf’s sub shop opening on Capitol Hill

Oh, hell yes. It appears that Snarf’s, a veritable sandwich institution in Boulder, is opening a location at 11th and Ogden in Capitol Hill. It already has the ovens and counters installed inside, so hopefully it won’t be too long before we can get a hot dog, American cheese and…

Bad week for burritos

As I ducked inside Beaucoup Burrito, my fantasies briefly sustained me, filling in for the abject lack of anything approaching decor.  The spot looked like a poverty-stricken imitation Chipotle: bare white-on-white-on-electric-lemon-lime-on-white walls, a soda machine, a counter and sneeze guard with handwritten grease-pencil notes demarcating what was what, a menu…

Spice Boys of the Rockies ready to pack it in

Earlier this month, the Spice Boys of the Rockies announced they’d be closing their five-year-old spice shop at 301 West 11th Avenue and moving their business all online, at www.spiceboysrock.com, by February 1.But sales — of both the spicy inventory and the store’s furnishings — have been going so fast…

A hot-pot start to the Chinese New Year

The Denver Buddhist Cultural Society, located at 2530 West Alameda Avenue, marked the beginning of the Year of the Ox last night with a free meal and celebration of the new year.”We did hot pot,” reports the temple’s Happy Hsu,  “which is similar to Japanese shabu-shabu. It was all vegetarian. We…

Tiki Torch extinguished

It was fun while it lasted, but the Tiki Torch Restaurant and Bar has been extinguished after less than six months. Last summer, the tiki bar/restaurant took over the former home of the Okoboji Inn at 5280 West 25th Avenue in Edgewater. But Mykel Martinez, who’d owned the legendary 15th…

Manischewitz! Local contestant in in national cook-off

Mazel Tov to Deborah Leebove, daughter of Joyce Foster (the former city councilwoman who was recently sworn in as a state senator), for reaching the finals of the Manischewitz National Cooking Competition. The Denver resident had her recipe chosen out of thousands, and is now one of six finalists for the…

The year of the ox — and of a second Star

A second Star is now shining in the metro area — and just in time to celebrate today’s start of the Chinese New Year.Last week, after a few delays, Heaven Star finally opened at 7600 West 120th Avenue in Broomfield. This is a second restaurant from the folks who brought…

Thanasi Foods thinks BIGS with bacon

Thanasi Foods LLC, a Boulder-based company,makes such unPC-sounding branded food products as Stubb’s and Jim Beam beef jerkys.In March, markets will start stocking its latest creation: BIGS, larger-than-average sunflower seeds (hence the name) with the flavors of Vlasic pickles, Frank’s RedHot sauce and even bacon, a miracle made possible by the…

Buenos Aires Grill to close

The lovely space at 2191 Arapahoe Street is about to swallow another restaurant. On Friday, the Carrera family sent out this note:Buenos Aires Grill will be closing its doors for business as of February 16, 2009. We sincerely appreciate all the support you have given us over the years. It…