Category: Colorado

ColoradoDog FriendlyRating: ExcellentSouthwesternUnited States

Gray’s Coors Tavern – Pueblo, Colorado

Gil Garduno12:48 AM

Dante Alighieri’s classic poem “A Divine Comedy” recounts a spiritual journey in which the author was guided by ancient Roman poet Virgil through hell, purgatory, and paradise.  Their path takes them through the nine circles of Hell where they witness the punishments suffered for all eternity by the souls of deceased sinners.  The deepest circle of Hell, where Satan resides, is reserved for history’s worst traitors–Judas Iscariot, Brutus, Cassius…and maybe a certain New Mexico food blogger who not only admits there is wonderful green chile to be found outside the paradise that is the Land of Enchantment; he believes it’s possibly just as good, even better than some New Mexico chile.  That chile, from Pueblo, Colorado isn’t just an “it’ll do” substitute, but a bona fide equal (or superior) to much of the green chile grown in Hatch, Chimayo, Lemitar, Deming, Jarales and any number of other purveyors of chile fecundity across New Mexico.   “Gasp!  Heresy!” you lash out.  “Next you’re going to tell us the Denver Broncos, not the Dallas Cowboys, are America’s team.  Before you condemn me to an eternity of wailing, gnashing of teeth and non-stop watching of The View, hear me out.  My “heretical declaration” is based…

AmericanBar & GrillColoradoDog FriendlyRating: N/R (Not Rated)SteakUnited States

The Rock Inn Mountain Tavern – Estes Park, Colorado

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

During my years at St. Anthony’s in Peñasco, I frequently tried the patience of the saintly nuns.   Thankfully capital punishment was not permissible or you wouldn’t be reading this.  It’s bad enough I wore out a few rulers and hopefully one elderly nun’s knuckles which often found their way to my head (that may explain a few things).  I wasn’t a malicious student, just one who didn’t always conform.  It wasn’t the age of “doing your own thing” though I certainly did my best to be an individual.  Albeit, I was an individual who didn’t do his homework or study for tests (but still managed to ace them all). My antics were never deliberately destructive.  In some ways I was like a gangly newborn giraffe trying to get my legs under me.  Unusually tall for an elementary school student in Northern New Mexico, I was a poster child for clumsiness.  Fellow students feared my lack of coordination would result in injury.  When the nuns insisted on having us square dance, the girls feared my do-si-do more than they did an impromptu math quiz.  My dancing resembled a combination of roller skating on ice and steer wrestling.    My Kim…

AmericanChickenColoradoDiners Drive-Ins and DivesRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

The Post Chicken & Beer – Estes Park, Colorado

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In 1974 prolific author Stephen King and his wife Tabitha spent a night in Room 217 of The Stanley, a a 140-room Colonial Revival hotel in Estes Park, about five miles from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.  The hotel staff was preparing to close the hotel for the season so the Kings found themselves the only guests in the place.  King wrote about the experience on his website: “Wandering through its corridors, I thought that it seemed the perfect—maybe the archetypical—setting for a ghost story. That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in the chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of the book firmly set in my mind.” As you ascend the hill leading to The Stanley, you’re struck at the grandeur and immensity of the complex.  It’s hard to imagine Jack Nicholson demolishing a door with an axe,…

Brewery-PubColoradoDog FriendlyIrishRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Shamrock Brewing Co. – Pueblo, Colorado

Gil Garduno1:46 PM

When my friend David Wagner, author of the spell-binding Rick Montoya Italian mysteries, invited us to dinner at the Shamrock Brewing Co. in his hometown of Pueblo, Colorado, I quickly leapt to the conclusion that Shamrock just might be the inspiration for O’Shea’s Irish Pub, the favorite gathering spot for Rick Montoya and other English-speaking expats living in Rome.  I pictured “a decor that could best be described as mid-century modern, that century being the seventeenth” with wood being the dominant feature.  My picture included a “professional tavern owner” with an appropriated name, maybe something like Guido Shamrock, would preside over the place. Shamrock wasn’t much like O’Shea’s.  Thankfully, it wasn’t much like contemporary Irish pubs across the fruited plain either.  You know the type:  the de rigueur Irish name (O’Casey, O’Brien, O’MyGod), tacky green paint with decorative leprechauns leaping around, super-cooled Guinness and lots of that good old-fashioned Irish craic (an old Gaelic term referring to the lively essence of the pub experience).  It’s gotten so bad Irish pubs have become a parody of stereotypes, prompting  some Europeans to denounce them as “the McDonald’s of the pub trade.”     In terms of look, feel and attitude, Shamrock may not…

Closed in 2010ColoradoGone But Not ForgottenSteakUnited States

The Hamilton Chop House – Durango, Colorado (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno6:17 PM

The Land of Enchantment with its 121,356 square miles of deserts, mesas, rivers, mountains, forests, cities and villages is the fifth largest state in the country.  In 2007, Albuquerque’s KOAT television station began a recurring series in which the station treated its viewers to an aerial perspective of many of the communities in its viewing area.  That unique bird’s eye view perspective was captured from Sky 7, the station’s news helicopter. In 2008, the station expanded its coverage, sending news anchor and New Mexico native Royale Dá skyward once again to show viewers the challenges faced by the communities featured on the series and how they are dealing with those challenges.  Royale was joined by city leaders from throughout the viewing area who boarded Sky 7 to share what makes their communities so special. One of the few cities visited in 2008 outside of New Mexico’s borders was Durango, Colorado, long a part of KOAT’s viewing area.  During the aerial tour of the city, Durango’s Director of Planning and Community Development Greg Hoch indicated that Durango actually has more restaurants per capita than the city of San Francisco. With a population of nearly 750,000 people, the city of San Francisco numbers just about 2,700 restaurants within its boundaries, giving…

BurgersClosed in 2012ColoradoGone But Not ForgottenUnited States

Conway’s Red Top – Pueblo Colorado (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:34 AM

Bigger may not always be better, but it can be pretty darn good. The gargantuan world famous hamburgers at Conway’s Red Top earn their “one’s a meal” reputation, but fell short in my estimation as one of the best hamburgers in America. A “people’s choice” mainstay in local newspapers, those humongous burgers earned acclaim as among the best hamburgers in America by no less than Michael and Jane Stern’s, America’s preeminent Roadfood experts. These burgers of legendary proportion have–similarly to patrons who can actually finish them–grown larger over the years. A giant hamburger is an eight ounce ground beef patty prepared to order with lettuce, tomatoes and onions on a six-inch bun baked locally in Pueblo. It’s a no frills monstrosity that can be ordered in whole or half sizes with the half sized burger being as big as the largest burger on many restaurant menus. Despite its prodigious patty, the gigantic burger and all its accoutrements is surprisingly thin. It does take two hands to handle it, but that’s in part to keep it from falling apart. As with Kincaid’s, another “top ten” burger, green chile would have crowned the burger better than the pepper jack, Swiss, Cheddar, Velveeta,…