The long-held adage that 90 percent of restaurants fail in their first year is a myth (a 2007 study found the number closer to 25 percent), but there’s no doubt that the first twelve months are trying for restaurateurs. And the owners of Boulder’s Cafe Aion made things particularly challenging,opening…
No. 72: New England clam chowder from Bittersweet Housed in a former auto body garage, Bittersweet, now a stone-stacked, high-ceilinged, two-room, garden-to-table food temple, is the blood, sweat and tears of chef/owner Olav Peterson, who opened in January after spending the past several years as the exec chef of Bistro…
Hot on the heels of the new USDA nutrition guidelines, which basically boil down to “lay off the calories, fatty, and consume a vegetable once in a while,” comes a study that gives you more incentive to eat right: Junk food doesn’t just cause you to gain weight; it also…
Benny Armas got his start more than three decades ago, cooking in other people’s kitchens. But from the moment he opened Benny’s, his own place in central Denver, it’s been a Denver institution, growing bigger (moving from its original spot at 225 East Seventh Avenue that’s now home to Mizuna…
Denver is up to its eyebrows in burgers at the moment, some of which are entirely forgettable, while others, like the buffalo burger dripping with cheese and grilled onions in the above pic, are worthy of your undivided attention. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives…
“Eh.” Over the two years I’ve lived in Boulder, that’s been my standard response whenever anyone suggested driving up winding Flagstaff Road to the Flagstaff House Restaurant for dinner or drinks. The iconic, fine-dining restaurant has been owned by the same family for forty years and helmed by the same…
Mark Monette listened patiently as I rambled on about how surprised I was by the food at the Flagstaff House. But when I finally asked him a question — how he kept things fresh after 25 years at the same place — he just laughed. “I came from the same…
Late last week, we held a little contest, one that would bestow love on one Cafe Society reader, who, in fourteen words or less, could convince those of us jaded by all that mushy love stuff that he or she deserved to win a complimentary Valentine’s dinner for two at…
Trudy Gonzales had never owned a restaurant before she opened 5th Sun Cafe & Lounge at 3024 Speer Boulevard. “People love my food, and they bugged me and bugged me to open a restaurant, so I finally decided to just do it,” she says. The name, she explains, is translated…
Five of the half-dozen enterprises commanded by prolific restaurateur/chef Frank Bonanno are participating in Denver Restaurant Week, which gets under way on February 26 and continues through March 11, offering two weeks of multi-course dinners, priced at $52.80 per couple or $26.40 for one, excluding tax and gratuity. Bonanno’s restaurants…
If you read this blog on a regular basis, then you know I have a slight obsession with salsa bars, including this recent discovery that, if my math adds up, hustles eight different concoctions, plus pickled onions, carrots and jalapenos and lemon wedges. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special…
Cafe Aion and Centro just rolled out dueling paella nights on Wednesdays in Boulder — but it turns out that these specials are a couple of years behind another longstanding paella deal in town: the Monday night special at Dagabi Cucina, 3970 North Broadway in Boulder…
It wasn’t that long ago that Edgewater was a restaurant wasteland, but over the past few years, the west side neighborhood, which borders Sloan’s Lake, has become far more palatable, in part, because of restaurants like The Edge, a breakfast and lunch joint, overlooking the lake, that opened ten days…
Last week Cafe Society served up four Guess where contests, featuring everything from fries at Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers to this still-unidentified hangar steak to rare sighting of clam strips that inspired this comment from one reader: “Holy shit where?” For correctly identifying that “where” as Jax (the LoDo…
Readers may not agree with Kyle Garratt’s In the Weeds (even last week’s positive round), but just about everyone agrees that a server’s job is one of the toughest in town.Catlover101st, for example, just weighed in with this response to his bad tipper column: I worked a second job as…
No. 73: Gumbo from Bistro One I was about to get fried chicken — the best in Denver, ballyhooed the bartender at Bistro One — but somehow, the subject switched to gumbo, and since the guy sitting next to me at the bar, who happened to be the owner of…
In a highly charged and extremely political fight, residents of Maine find themselves trying to answer a life-or-death question: What should be the state’s official dessert? The question threatens to divide families, as the whoopie pie camp battles the blueberry pie camp over what’s more representative of the Pine Tree…
Earlier this week, Pete Marczyk, who co-owns Marczyk Fine Foods with his wife, Barb, shot me an e-mail asking which Jewish deli in Denver was the best. If I had to pick just one, I told Pete, it would be Deli Tech, a persuasively authentic fortress of pastrami, corned beef,…
Protesters demonstrated at Minnesota outposts of Denver-based Chipotle last month after the company fired a significant population of its workers in that state. The dismissals came after a federal immigration audit questioned the authenticity of the documents provided by several employees regarding their eligibility to work in the United States…
There are very, very few restaurant menus in the Mile High City that lay claim to clam strips, which is why we were pleasantly shocked to find these. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Where am I drinking/eating…
A quick jaunt through Open Table confirms what we already know: If you haven’t already made a reservation for Valentine’s Day, good luck snagging one. Valentine’s Day is one of the most popular nights of the year for dining out, and more often than not, it’s an expensive proposition, but…
Turns out, there is accounting for taste — at least according to the World Carrot Museum. Earlier this week, I posted a photo and explanation detailing why I now have a giant carrot tattooed on my body. Soon after, I heard from the curator of the World Carrot Museum –…
