Denver restaurants

For 50 years, a Pepto Bismol-pink tower has loomed large over the Lakewood shopping center marking the spot of the legendary Casa Bonita. The tower is something of a beacon, calling to longtime fans and would-be diners with the promise of mariachi music, cliff divers, crispy sopapillas and the kind of fun that inspires childlike joy. Next week will mark the 50th anniversary the day that Oklahoma City entrepreneur Bill Waugh opened Denver’s Casa Bonita in a former Joslin’s department store. The restaurant was part of a…

Four years of waiting. Four years of questions. Denver’s Vine Street Pub & Brewery, which closed because of the pandemic on March 17, 2020, along with every other restaurant, bar and brewery in Colorado, said Thursday that it had made plans to finally reopen this spring. Vine Street Pub & Brewery is opening on May 15th,” the business wrote on its Facebook page. “We are currently hiring for all positions.” Three other pubs that are part of the Boulder-based Mountain Sun group were able to open in 2021, while a…

Ian’s Pizza, the small, Madison, Wisc.-based chain known for its wild toppings, said Tuesday that it has closed its Ballpark neighborhood restaurant, 2210 Blake St., for good. The spot, which opened in 2014, served pizzas with unusual toppings, including macaroni and cheese, as well as ravioli and even nachos ingredients. The news comes nearly a year after Ian’s was forced to close temporarily to deal with a major flooding problem. The temporary closure dragged on for months, though, until the restaurant finally conceded…

There are a plethora of highly anticipated restaurants making their debut in Denver this year, but if you can’t wait that long to satisfy your appetite, Yelp is here to help. On Tuesday, the restaurant review platform released its annual list of the top 100 places to eat in the U.S. in 2024, which includes three spots in Denver and one in Lafayette. It’s the 11th time Yelp has curated the list by analyzing user submissions and ranking them based on review ratings and volumes, alongside community input. The top spot in…

Denver restauranteur Frank Schultz testified emotionally Thursday that his mother, who is also his business partner, has purloined hundreds of thousands of dollars from their bars and restaurants, seriously jeopardizing the financial future of once-thriving companies. “My mom and I started this in 1997 and we always had our differences, but we each had a role to play and we fed off each other,” Schultz said of the Tavern Hospitality Group’s origins as he pushed back tears on the witness stand. “I think we were a pretty…

A Denver restaurant specializing in hot dogs has closed following the death of its owner. Inspired by his childhood summer spent noshing on franks in Chicago, Sonny Jarock opened the original Mile High Vienna Stand near the intersection of 3rd Avenue and Santa Fe Drive in 2008 before moving to another building at 300 Santa Fe Drive. Posts from family on Facebook say Jarock died on Dec. 3 at 50 years old and that the stand will close. A call and email seeking comment went unanswered Wednesday morning. Commenters shared…

After a decade of selling ice cream with wacky toppings and in all kinds of shapes and sizes, Denver’s Ice Cream Riot, 1238 E. Colfax Ave., has announced that it is closing soon. The store was known for its breakfast cereal-inspired ice creams, like Fruity Pebbles, along with Pop-Tarts ice cream sandwiches and of course, cannoli-stuffed ice creams. “Well friends, I’m here to break the news that like Boyz II Men, we’ve come to the end of the road here at Ice Cream Riot,” owner Jim McNutt posted on Instagram. “A few weeks…

Another longtime Denver-area restaurant, this one in Englewood, is closing. The beloved Mexican food spot, El Tepehuan, plans to shutter on Dec. 31 as its owner, Graciela Corral, retires, according to an announcement shared by her son, Miguel Corral. The restaurant, endearingly called El Tep by locals, dates back to 1978 when immigrant Jose David Corral of Sinaloa, Mexico, used his hard-earned money to “achieve his dream to open his own business,” according to the restaurant’s website. He named it El Tepehuan as an homage…

The new year isn’t all it’s cracked up to be for restaurants with menus that rely heavily on eggs. In the last few weeks, eggs have quickly disappeared from Colorado grocery store shelves and prices have skyrocketed. The egg shortage is a result of a nationwide avian flu outbreak infecting poultry farms, increased consumer demand during the holidays, plus a new state law requiring that all eggs sold in grocery stores and produced on Colorado farms be cage-free, which took effect on Jan. 1. But it’s not just grocery…

As Denver’s oldest operating bar, My Brother’s Bar never had an automated phone system, online ordering or reservations before the pandemic. Like the age of the bar, everything was old school. “But when we converted our parking lot to a patio and added the Aspenglobes out there for the winter, we just started getting inundated with calls here,” owner Danny Newman said. “Everyone was asking about reservations and wait times, and our staff was swamped.” Last year, Newman, a mobile tech entrepreneur who bought the legendary…