Comfort Cafe reduces hours due to uncomfortable lack of revenue

“Unfortunately, we’re losing about $5,000 a month right now and it’s starting to really hurt my pocketbook,” explains Jan Bezuidenhout, who openedComfort Cafe, a non-profit, pay-what-you-can eatery at 3945 Tennyson Street two years ago. “It’s been a wonderful two years here, but this location is just too expensive. We decided…

Red Robin’s Burger Works: Rise of the machine

Red Robin’s new spinoff concept, Red Robin’s Burger Works, is a smaller, less-dramatic-and-more-metallic version of the original, meant for smaller urban spaces. It has less hustle and bustle than the original stores, and also much less less square footage, but the company put a handful of its most successful burgers…

Vail Valley’s popular Eat+Drink is opening in Denver on Platte Street

When Pollyanna Forster opened Eat! Drink!, an artisan cheese boutique, charcuterie parlor, chocolate stop and wine shop in Edwards, just outside Vail, in 2004, Valley residents immediately embraced it, and now Forster is hoping that Denverites will do the same when she unveils Eat+Drink in Denver next month at 1541…

Guess where I’m drinking rosé on a hot, hot day?

“When did Denver’s climate become Kenya?” quipped a friend, who was dripping — as we all were — with sweat. The heat, by just about anyone’s standards, is insufferable, but a cold glass of rosé, or, in this case, four, in an air-conditioned bar, provided a bit of temporary relief,…

Superfood salad from Modmarket lives up to its name

The concept behind Modmarket is fresh, seasonal, farm-to-table food served up fast. And it’s caught on fast: After the original outpost opened in Boulder two years ago, the company quickly opened two more locations. We stopped by the restaurant at 8575 East Arapahoe Road in Greenwood Village yesterday, hoping to…

Ben DiPietro, founder of the Edgewater Inn, passes away

Denver’s had to say arrivederci to some of this city’s pizza pioneers this month. Hank Dire, whose parents founded the Bonnie Brae Tavern in 1934 and who worked at the family business for his whole life, passed away at the age of 84 in early June. And now Ben DiPietro,…

Photos: Pizzeria Di Olinto opens in Centennial

“It’s my husband’s fault,” declares Terri Lack. “All of it.” Still, there could be worse things than getting the blame for your wife’s infatuation with Italian food, to which Lack admits a serious addiction. “My husband comes from an Italian family, and when I first went to his parents’ house,…

Guess where I’m eating drunken noodles?

The family who owns this Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese/sushi restaurant had congregated at a table in the middle of the dining room to share lunch, and the food they had in front of them was far different from the food we had in front of us; they were eating the stuff you find…

Four Seasons closes Level 3 pool bar to the public

Four Seasons Hotel Denver announced today that it’s closing Level 3 — the popular rooftop pool bar that was open once a week to the public throughout the summer. “Level 3 was a great addition to the Denver night-life scene,” says general manager Theirry Kennel. “However, we’ve decided to keep…

Guess where I’m eating tomato pie?

Tomato season is starting to take root, and here, at this restaurant, the tomato pie is a perfect way to celebrate the fruit of the vine. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Guess Where posts is entered into…

An exclusive first look of the new Squeaky Bean, opening Monday

“The Bean is back.” That was the overriding footnote last night at the Squeaky Bean, the tongue-in-cheek restaurant that Bean king Johnny Ballen originally unleashed in Highland in May of 2009. And during the three years that the Squeaky Bean resided in Highland, it generated a cult following, thanks to…

The buzz on beekeeping and urban agriculture

Above the heads of passersby, James Bertini’s bees are flying in circles around the entrance to their new home: a small tube set in the red brick wall at Denver Urban Homesteading. Though the bees are still orienting themselves with the ins and outs of their glass-windowed beehive, soon they’ll…