Volume 4, Issue 15
July 24 - August 7, 2002
Photos by Sean Hartgrove
Makeup and hair by Heather Bruck
Models: Buddy and Andrea
An infrequently asked question around the Go-Go office is, "Where, at three in the morning, after hitting every bar from unincorporated Adams County to Parker, can I stuff my face and thus perhaps avert a hangover of brobdingnagian proportion?" Infrequently, because we know. And because we know, we're telling you. No need to thank us. It's our business. So without further ado, we present for your edification Go-Go Magazine's picks for the best late-late dining options in Denver. Mind you, we didn't leave the city proper, so if we missed someone's favorite 24-hour pancake hut up on Teller Pass, tough. We know you don't have the time or sobriety to go very far, so we made sure to keep 'em close. Got your bibs? Bottle of Wall Street? Good. Read on.
Jerusalem, steps away from the University of Denver at 1890 Evans, has catered to the Mile High City's after-hours grub jones for 24 years. Like an open market in a bustling Middle Eastern capital, Jerusalem offers myriad options for the ravished bar-closer. Now open 24 hours a day, Jerusalem is always occupied and usually busy, but prime time is after two am. The din gets deafening and the service gets a little sharp, but the smells and tastes of the Holy Land coat the atmosphere (not to mention stomachs sloshing with booze). Say you close down the Stadium Inn and bring the whole entourage across Evans for a posse feast. Order up a few of the crew-friendly appetizers, especially the babaghanouj, tabbouleh and homemade hommoss. Throw in an order of the stuffed grape leaves while you're at it --Tonight we drink Citrona!--share drunken war stories about high school, and wake up with pleasantly painful heartburn.
Or, suppose you're wrapping up the first date with your future ex-wife. They say the quickest way into a woman's bedroom is through her gullet, so ask for a hearty entree to share, such as a kabob platter, the falafel and hommoss combination or the ever-popular gyros (don't forget the cucumber salad). If you're worried about maintaining fresh breath, well, you wouldn't have set foot in Jerusalem in the first place. It's all chock full of chick peas, not to mention garlic, onions, olive oil and various aged meats. Hopefully the liquor will distract you both from your foul exhaust.
If your agenda this night is rushing home to catch a Babylon 5 marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel, food preparation time is of the utmost import. For you, the socially challenged late-night diner, Jerusalem has tapped the awesome might of pita bread. Virtually any item on their vast menu can be shoehorned into a pita pocket for handy transport to your ultimate destination. Even the lowliest among us, the vegetarians, can find solace at Jerusalem. When sheep flesh doesn't float your boat, try fouel, a pasty dip made up of fava beans and spices, or fatouch, a kind of Lebanese bruschetta. Desserts are available as well, but what you need now, young man, is some sleep. --Jason I. Fisher
Colfax is a good place to be late at night. Just ask any one of the many shuffling, barely-clothed/sane folks wandering about at say, two in the morning. Long after the Nob Hill Inn has poured its last Bud, long after the last tattooed Johnny Yahoo has hit on the last tired cocktail waitress, the Longest Street in America (an appellation that Go-Go just doesn't believe, no matter what the real facts are) is still a-hustle and a-bustle. And a lot of said hustling and bustling involves, at some point, Tom's Diner . Tom's Diner is old school, not just because of the California Classic Diner architecture-- although it is spectacular, and worthy of at least a gawk, especially since such buildings are rapidly being bulldozed into extinction--but because it's cheap, greasy, unpretentious and open all the damn time. And, surprise, surprise, the food is lots better than you'd expect.
Stick with breakfast. Always. Not because other stuff on the menu is bad, but simply because breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Doesn't matter what time you eat it. Bacon, eggs, a big pile of taters, some Tabasco, this is the gas that drives our machine. The superglue that holds up our kicking contruction worker. The fuzz in our pillows, the Green in our Lantern. All here, available for what amounts to pocket change, mere blocks from your tiny, sweaty Capitol Hill apartment.
Which brings us to the other great benefit afforded by Tom's location: weirdness. Nothing befits the spirit of Colfax more than the sight of a guy in a torn sweatshirt talking to the stains on the linoleum. Missing teeth, hookers, kids who should probably not have run away from home, all of the stuff we used to have with the White Spot before those damn bulldozers arrived. And the cooks are funny guys. Tom's, with the Afro dude and hip hippie chick on the roof, is a nexus, bringing folks from different socioeconomic backgrounds together for an omelet before sunrise, offering sanctuary to the weirdos and their owners alike. How many Le Peeps can say that? Tom's Diner is located at 601 E. Colfax. They are open whenever you are.--Alex
It's 4 am Friday night and youíve got a mad case of the munchies. Where can salvation be found? Pete's Kitchen ! The best greasy spoon diner in Denver. The late night crowd is a melange of Denver's party people and miscreants. The food is reasonably priced and tastes great going down. Good burgers and shakes (a staple of any late night diner soiree). If you're in the mood to go Greek, the gyros are the best in Denver---a jaw can only open so wide and these gyros test the limit. There's souvlaki, which is like gyro, but with chunks of marinated pork instead of gyro meat (awesome), and then there's the chicken kabobs (which rule).
Perhaps most noteworthy is the breakfast burrito supreme. Don't let the word breakfast fool you, the breakfast burrito supreme is not to be taken lightly! You can eat this dish at any time and be satiated. Ham, bacon, sausage, gyros, hashbrowns, two eggs, tomatoes onions and cheese, wrapped in a tortilla and topped with red or green chile. Whew. It's a heart attack on a plate, but boy, is it yummy. If your late night has gone so late that it's not technically night anymore, there's great pancakes, omelets and all of that other stuff morning people eat. An off-duty cop does the greeting and seating late night--where else do you get an armed escort to your table? The service is great, and if there's a wait, it's well worth it. Pete's is located at 1962 E. Colfax. Hours are Sunday-Thursday from 6 am to 11 pm and all day and night Friday and Saturday. --Fredstrong
The Denver Diner makes up in consistency what it lacks in, well, you know. This isn . t the place to have mom buy you dinner when she's in town. What it is, is Denver's number one option for late night downtown eats. Everyone knows the Diner. Slightly scarred, a little bit like a Howard Johnson's on a Kansas highway, the Diner packs in the drunks, the college students, even the movers-n-shakers. The food is typically greasy, but the menu is big enough and the servers are amazingly gracious, considering the quantity and relative quality of the patrons. You try slopping hash browns to soused club kids at 3 in the morning on Wednesday and see if you can still get it up for a smile. Betcha can't.
Go-Go 's favorite menu item? Can't pick just one here, but that may be because we're always loaded when we order. We know we eat eggs and toast and sausage patties. We've had the milkshakes, which top a stomach full of beer nicely. Other than that, you're on your own. Not that you really need advice--ordering diner food is a talent decent Americans are born with. We believe in you. The Denver Diner is located at 740 W. Colfax Ave. , right across from the Auraria Campus. You can't miss it, which is a good thing when the witching hour is long past and your vision is slightly blurry. --Wilson
There exists, on the highways and urban underpasses of this nifty Nation, a special breed of restaurant. The kind of place where servers are still waitresses and old men still prefer nine cups of weak coffee to one regular, where fake wood paneling and burnt sienna don't feel especially out of place. The place where the daily special is also on the menu. Such establishments are the glue, our common Spartan experience, where you know exactly what you're gonna get, every single time. The Breakfast King is one. All day, every day, truckers and workers and weaselly teens from Highlands Ranch and families from church and night owl clubbers gather at this old West Denver hash house for any meal they care to have, served with aplomb. You won't find bruschetta or pancetta or feta, but if you want a big stack of pancakes or a fish sandwich, or some biscuits in white gravy, settle on in. Above the cash register is an old Gene Amole column from 1982 celebrating the place, and rightfully so--Gene knew good ol' food. His was the generation that gave us these places, all-night food stops for the eternal transients of the highway.
The prices are, of course, eminently reasonable, and the service is second nature to the employees, who greet regulars by name. Eat anything, because the quality is universally above-average. Village Inn could learn a thing or two here. The cooks are pros, and--big points--churn out eggs at the correct temperature. You'd be surprised, if you haven't already tried, how hard it is to get a properly cooked over medium in this town. Lunch and dinner are equally tasty.
Of course, nothing is a better sauce than hunger, or specifically, late night post-bar hunger. And there's no better way to fill the tank than by hunkering down in a vinyl booth, one with a nice view of the back of Gates Rubber, and chowing down on straight-ahead American-style eats. The Breakfast King is open 24 hours a day. They are located on the corner of Mississipi and Santa Fe. --Alex
It's not maybe the first place you'd think of as far as late night eating goes, but Barricuda's serves the necessary components as late as 4 in the morning on both Fridays and Saturdays. And what's more, it's actually pretty good. Bar food after a certain hour carries with it the implied possibility of gift loogie from disgruntled/crazy/wasted kitchen staffers, so it is always best to be leery of alcohol-first establishments. But this tidy little pool hall in the heart of Cool Denver not only does inexpensive grub, it does it with more than the requisite amount of style. Nothing out of the ordinary---bar standards that sop up booze--but the familiarity is what's so refreshing. With everybody and their rich Aunt hopping on the nouveau cuisine bandwagon, it's nice to have a big juicy cheeseburger, cooked right, with some big-ass waffle fries. And it's nice to have them after staggering across the street from The Park.
So drop by, play a game of pool or two. Have some chicken fingers. This bar is the kind of place you'd miss if you blinked, so don't blink. Go straight in and tell 'em Go-Go Magazine sent you (which isn't going to get you anything for free, hoss, so settle down) and you wanna have a burger and some waffle fries, and you wanna have 'em now. They'll oblige. If you're lucky, they'll even serve you some of that delicious alcohol. The one thing we don't get is the name. There's probably a weird story there, one ripe for the telling, but we didn't ask because our mouths were full. We looked at the wall, not a barricuda in sight. Nor was one parked in the lot, nor was Heart playing. We say, hmmm. Barricuda's is located at 1076 Ogden. They are open until 4 am Friday and Saturday. --Wilson
But if none of our favorite after-hours troughs sounds like a winner, be not afraid. For there is always the last, sometimes best, option. Pizza. But not any Domino's/Pizza Hut/Papa John's crap, oh no. You are a discerning pie consumer, one not to be led astray by the flavorless corporate giants. You demand hot, tasty, a crust with just the right balance between crisp and chewy, lots of toppings, all served by a tattooed New Yorker. You want Benny Blanco's Slice of the Bronx .
Benny's, while relatively new to the Denver pizza scene, is nonetheless making its mark, and not just because they deliver until three am. Their pies are so NYC that they might as well have just hopped off a red eye from LaGuardia. As one Go-Go associate, a native of the Big Apple, recently asserted,--it's freakin' crack--That it is. While they don't have any place for you to sit down, and when ordering in-house you might have to stand on someone's shoulder's --bring your own dwarf, just in case--those are minor concerns. What matters is the pie, big enough to kill large rodents with, delicious enough to kill your uncle over. Benny Blanco's Slice of the Bronx is located at 614 E. 13th Ave. Buy a pizza by entering the following code into that thing on your wall: 303-831-1346. --Alex
So, leave that stool. They're kicking you out anyway. Get yourself something to eat. We've given you the knowledge, all you've got to do is use it. Excelsior!
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