“Pack a Picnic” from Jay’s Parkside Cafe

Just in time for summer: starting Monday, June 7th, Jay’s Parkside Café, a neighborhood deli featuring gourmet panini, wraps, salads, and frozen yogurt, is expanding their hours. Jay’s will open everyday for lunch, including Sundays, from 11:00-3:00. Additionally, Jay’s will reopen for light dinners from 5:30-8:00, Monday –Thursdays.

As a special promo, Jay’s will offer a free shot of frozen yogurt with any meal purchased after 5:30! For more info, call 303-825-1500.

I Just Love Cool Ideas, Love ‘Em

This is the stuff cities are made of.  The good folks over at Salvagetti have been repairing bikes and bringing a certain hipster elan to the whole ride your bike everywhere thing for a few years now.  But, a few months ago, they took the idea of being a bike commuter to a whole new level.

Let’s face it, there’s one thing that every commute needs, and that’s an espresso based drink, maybe with milk, maybe not.  So, Salvagetti opened a bike through window.  All those folks in their SUVs lined up at the Starbucks across from the Starbucks on Belleview are going to be jealous. 

And, as if to prove a point, right as I was picking up my first cup of specially, particularly brewed coffee, this great guy name Dylan Scholinski walked up.  We got to chatting about what he does, and it’s pretty sweet, though a bit sad, too.  Dylan runs an organization called Sent(a)Mental, an arts program for those affected by suicide.  He does some of his work out of the Other Side arts studio on Platte Street, and he’s got a pretty cool website that will walk you through what he does.

If you want to read a bit more about the coffee shop, visit their site, this take from Westword, or check out the ways to get free coffee.  Hint: the first person to wear sequins at the window gets a free drink (and talked about afterwards).

Click through for a few more pictures, including an incredible action pose of the barista, Sam, handing a freshly brewed cup to Dylan.

This Is Going to Be Cool

A long time ago, I spent a few good months traveling back and forth between Philadelphia and New York.  At the time, there was an incredible restaurant in Philly called Buddakan.  A few years later, the owner of Buddakan made a avery rare jump into the very rare air of the New York restaurant scene.  Well, I’m excited that my long relationship with Buddakan is going to continue: the current executive chef at Buddakan is giving up the gander and coming to get the goose that Denver has to offer.  (Ohmigoodness, that was a bad sentence.)

The current lead chef at Buddakan, Lon Symensa, and his new partners in the Flow Restaurant Group are set to open a new spot at the base of one of my favorite buildings in Denver, Sugar Cubed.

If you really want to have some fun, click through for a little tour the restaurant team is taking (took?) through Southeast Asia.  The point of the trip: plan the menu.  Sometimes I sort of secretly wish I was a chef.

A Gourmet Taste of Denver Tour

What a fun way to spend the day and it all starts right here in Riverfront Park!  Reserve your spot in A Gourmet Walking Tour this Saturday, May 8th from 1-4:00pm and go behind the scenes to meet the artisans who create Denver’s gourmet foods. A Gourmet Walking Tour is your chance to taste the best of Denver’s thriving artisanal culinary scene. 

To find out more about this event and what “eating locally” really means, click here.

That Was Fun

So, the Riverfront Park Social Club got together last night at the soon-to-be venerable Rack & Rye.  The reason?  Well, there were three, really:

1.  We all really like the idea of going to Rack & Rye, and, quite awesomely, they were giving away whiskey, really good whiskey.

2.  Seeing your neighbors is always fun.

3.  The whole thing was for a good cause.  Arlen Preblud and his wife, Leigh, started an awesome new organization called We Don’t Waste.  It’s a neat idea.  Basically, the site is a clearing house for food that’s about to be thrown away but is still good.  Food kitchens and other similar organizations can go online and find sources of free food from wholesalers, grocery stores and restaurants.  Check it out here.

And, if you want to see a few more pictures of the neighbors and the event, click that little comment button right below this sentence.

Sometimes It’s Hard to Get Your Hands Around an Idea

So, oddly, Denver’s having an apres-ski party all week.  I think the Downtown Denver Partnership is putting it on, but I’m just not sure.  (Go to the website and see if you can figure it out for yourself.) I’ve been thinking about this ever since banners started appearing all over town pimping the event.  How are they going to apres-ski?  They can’t take the ski train to Winter Park this season Everyone knows better than to drive down from the mountains right after the day ends.  (Actually, the real problem is that not enough people know that.) There hasn’t been enough snow in Commons Park lately to so much as slide straight on a sled.  So what is the event, really?

Well, I figured it out.  It’s apres-work.  And that’s as good of an excuse as one might need to go to any one of the THIRTY-PLUS venues doing something this week.  Pretty awesome idea, really.  And, if you don’t overthink it, it makes sense immediately.

(You can click through, but unless you’re dying to see to that photo just a bit bigger or you really have something important to say, there’s no reason to do so.)