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A Mile Closer to the Stars

Fan-recommended Restaurants, Bars and Clubs in Denver

Have a favorite restaurant, bar or club in Denver? Tell us about your favorite spots in Denver. Post your comments to this discussion in the Denvention LiveJournal. If you want, include your real name as sometimes E-mail or LJ names don't include the name most of us know you by! I will try to keeo adding pits of the LJ discussion to this list.

Let us know a little about the restaurant, rough prices, the address, Web site (if available) and if it takes credit cards. Is there WiFi available? Is it accessible?

Some of downtown Denver, in the 16th Street Mall area, has free WiFi.

The goal of this page is to give folks some pre-con planning information. Sometimes, you don't hear about a particularly interesting restaurant until after you've left the con. So the focus of this page isn't to list every fast food and pizza joint near the Denver Convention Center--it's to suggest interesting places to visit when you have a little time to enjoy a meal.

Downtown Denver

Sam's #No.3, downtown at 15th and Curtis, 303-534-1927. Good basic diner food, reasonably priced ($5-$15), And it does take credit cards. Early morning breakfast M-F is very cheap. [[multiple recommendations]]

Sonoda's Sushi, 1620 Market St, 303-595-9500. Around $20-40 for a meal, sushi prices vary. Elevator access to parts of the restaurant. Credit cards: Discover, Visa, MasterCard, Diner's Club, American Express.

Illegal Pete's, 1530 16th St., #101, 303-623-2169. All kinds of tacos (including fish).

Leela European Cafe, 820 15th St. , 303-534-2255. 24-hour coffee shop featuring Italian coffee and Wifi.

Cafe@Netherworld, 1278 Pennsylvania St., 303-861-8638. Low prices (a good meal can be had for under ten bucks), good beer, fast WiFi open late, freak-friendly. Walking distance from downtown and credit cards accepted. [[Editorial comment: This place looks like fun!]]

Cafe Berlin, 323 14th St., 303-377-5896 (closed all day Sunday, only open for dinner on Saturday), 3-4 blocks uptown from the Colorado Convention Center. Great German food (stop your heart goodness), German beers on tap by the 1/3, 1/2, or full liter. Get a reservation.

Palettes at the Denver Art Museum, 100 W 14th Ave Pkwy, 303-534-1455. Contemporary American cuisine.

Paramount Cafe, 519 16th St., 303-893-2000.

Willie G's, 1585 Lawrence St., 303-575-9000. Steak, seafood and oyster bar. Note that this is not a local restaurant; it's part of Landry's restaurants.

Marlowes, 16th Street Mall and Glenarm, 303-595-3700.

Bravo! Ristorante Adam's Mark Hotel, 800-444-2326. Chain.

Le Central, 112 East 8th Ave., 303-863-8094. Best french restaurant, on the expensive side for dinner, but very reasonably priced for lunch and the food is absolutely unbelievable! Go before 12:00 or after 1:00 to avoid the crowds. Their menu changes every day. [[multiple recommendations]]

Sushi Den, 1487 S. Pearl St., 303.777.0826. Best sushi restaurant, on the expensive side, takes credit cards, has a "sister restaurant" in Japan!

The Broker Restaurant, 821 17th St., 303-292-5065. Excellent food, expensive for dinner ($10-$20 lunch menu). Part of the restaurant is in old bank vaults. [[multiple recommendations]]

Le Peep, 999 18th St., 303-244-0360. Breakfast, lunch and party trays.

Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs Cart, located at Skyline Park on the SW corner of 16th and Arapahoe streets, He has reindeer, buffalo, and other strange and interesting options. He's basically open during the day - shuts down at 4 or 5pm, and he's only open M-F.

Irish Snug, 1201 East Colfax Ave (at Lafayette), 303-839-1394. Easy to get to by bus (the 15 stopps on the corner.) Authentic Irish Pub food and great drinks and music. I've been going there for years. My favorite is the Fish and Chips. It's so good I haven't tried anything else on the menue... yet. *blush*

The Cheeky Monk Belgian Beer Cafe, 534 E. Colfax (Colfax and Pearl), 303-861-0347. They have a very interesting selection of Belgian food items (and a few not-so-Belgian items) on the menu, and a wide selection of imported Belgian beers on tap. The imported beers are fairly pricey, but good to check out.

1515 Restaurant, 1515 Market St., 303-436-0940.

Red Square Bistro and Vodka Bar, 1512 Larimer Street Unit R38, 303-595-8600. Interesting food and many kinds of flavored and frozen vodkas.

WaterCourse Foods, 837 E. 17th St., 303-832-7313. This is a nice sit-down vegetarian restaurant. Great for breakfast.

City O' City, 206 E. 13th Ave., 303-831-6443. A coffee shop with vegetarian and vegan pizzas.

Pint's Pub, 221 W. 13th Ave., 303-534-7543. British-style brewpub in Denver. Pint's is in a very quaint and inviting house sitting, and in addition to the brews they make in the basement, they have the best burger around here. Note that this restaurant is not wheelchair accessible.

Shish Kabob Grill, 1503 Grant St. at Colfax Ave., 303-837-8800. Great Middle Eastern food (actually, Moroccan/Mediterranean). Try the hummus.

Thai Basil, 1422 East 18th Ave, 303-861-1226. About 20 blocks from the convention center. Panang curry and the spiced roasted duck are recommended.

Tokyo Joe's, 1001 16th St., 303-825-0321 (and other places). A local chain serving inexpensive (but decent quality) sushi and rice bowls.

Delectable Egg, 1625 Court Pl., 303-892-5720. They serve a killer breakfast, so even though the dining area is quite spacious, there can sometimes be a line.

McCormick's Fish House & Bar, 1659 Wazee, 303-825-1107. Serves seafood and steak but menu changes daily, price: $30-$60 per person, extensive wine/beer/cocktail list, dress code: casual to formal, part of the McCormick's and Schmick chain.

An anonymous poster wrote a long description of some of the main eating/shopping areas of downtown Denver:

16th Street Mall. Two blocks east of the convention center (running roughly north and south - the streets are cockeyed in this part of downtown). The mall is 3 or 4 miles long and holds a couple dozen restaurants from classy to fastfood (as well as the Tattered Cover bookstore at 16th and Wynkoop). The mall bisects downtown and LoDo and has free mall buses running all day and into the evening. This is where you'll find a Starbucks on every other corner, which of course has its own version of WiFi.
Larimer Square (14th Street to 15th Street on Larimer). Five blocks north of the convention center. All sit-down fairly nice restaurants including one of the premier steak houses (Capital Grille - expensive), but also has The Market (an eclectic deli and coffee house).
LoDo. Lower Downtown starts at Larimer Street and heads northwest. It's a large area that contains any number of restaurants. But if convention go-ers just walk "north" along 15th Street or the 16th Street Mall they'll be in LoDo within five or ten minutes. Here they'll find Buca di Bepo (15th Street and Market), Wahoo's Fish Tacos (1521 Blake Street), Wynkoop Brewing Company (brewpub at 18th Street and Wynkoop, once owned by Denver's Mayor Hickenlooper ... gotta love that name), Sullivan's (18th Street and Wazee, one of my favorite steak houses w/ live jazz music in the bar - but be warned people can still smoke in this bar), Dixon's (16th Street and Wazee ... great place for groups, can almost always find a table and food is decent and reasonably priced), and many others.
17th Avenue. Out-of-towners, don't mistake this with 17th Street. This is a mile or two from the convention center (quick cab ride, though I've walked the distance many times). There are a great eclectic group of restaurants here from Steubens (523 East 17th Ave., a slightly upscale diner), Bump-n-Grind (439 E 17th Ave, weekend transvestite brunch ... the waitstaff, not necessarily the customers), Hamburger Mary's Bar and Grill (700 E 17th Ave, 1/2 pound burgers), and many more. Very gay-friendly set of restaurants.

Gookachu noted: I second the wynkoop and bumb&grind. bump&grind's empanada is not to be missed. sunday is drag show brunch, and they have a fabulous dish called the cheesey estrada.

Denver Restaurant Guides:

Out of Downtown

Star of India, 3102 Parker Rd., #A-10 (just off of 225), Aurora, 303-755-1921. About 45 minutes outside of town, but it's good. And there's other good places in the area.

Enchanted Grounds Coffeehouse and Gameporium, 8800 S. Colorado Blvd., Highlands Ranch, 303-470-1010. About 45 minutes outside of town, for those who want a geekly cuppa or a place to game.

Craftwood Inn, 404 El Paso Blvd., Manitou Springs, 719-685-9000. This restaurant is 80 miles away, but if you love game and views of the Rockies, this is definitely worth the trip.

Special thanks to simmons42 who posted many useful suggestions to the Denvention LiveJournal.

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