Best Western Plus Boulder Blog

Boulder Restaurant History Blog
(including comment threads below)
From James Harrington, who posted this on the former Best Western Plus Boulder Inn’s website

For its size Boulder always had a large number of restaurants due to its affluence, being a college town, or just a general lack of interest in cooking indoors when you can be outside hiking, biking, or skiing. But back before the mid 1970’s there were a lot fewer restaurants and honestly not as many good ones as there are today.  

If you sent your typical Boulder Bistro diner of today back to the 70’s they wouldn’t know what to eat. All the food was pretty much American then, the local brew was a Coors beer, and there were no fancy coffee shops only simple old fashioned morning jo. What Boulder did have was  Mork from Ork, played by Robin Williams,  great weather, and famous beat poets who sipped borscht  and ate corned beef on rye  at the New York Deli, ate ice cream at the middle of the night at the Serendipidty Café and drank Coors beer  at Potters.

With the help of the Joan Brett’s Culinary School of the Rockies (now the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts) and other cooking schools elevating the technical skills of the cooking staff, the food scene in Boulder has improved to become one of the foodiest towns in the country.

Boulder restaurants did not always serve such distinguishing palettes. People use to fly over Boulder to get to Aspen but now Boulder at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains is a food destination of its own. Top chefs, attracted to the Boulder lifestyle, perform culinary magic nightly with their skilled staff at restaurants like Frasca, Flagstaff, Greenbriar, Blackbelly, Jax, the Kitchen, Salt, Bacco and others. As good as the award-winning food in Boulder is, the memory of what it was in years past is always better. Top chefs know it is better to create a new food experience than try to recreate or compete with an old one. Mom’s cooking won’t be beat by any classically trained French chef!  As we stroll down memories lane reflecting on yesteryear’s meals, we dine on the nostalgia of Boulder past restaurants. We salivate for that delicious meal not fully remembered yet also—even today—not fully forgotten by our taste buds. We remember exquisite flavors that can’t be recreated in large part because it was a meal shared in especially good company during Boulder’s simpler days.

In the 1970’s there were hippie hangouts including the Carnival Café on Broadway between Pearl and Walnut. It was a sharing-caring-cooperative-run restaurant that exuded a colorful gypsyesque potpourri of enthusiastic alternativeness. The Carnival Café was founded initially by Mark Gunther, who later sold it (when the debts were paid off) to all 20 plus workers, many of whom also in a performance troupe. The “Carnies” as they were called were a lively bunch of buskers running a restaurant, bakery and store who were also involved in theater, clowning and dance. The Café was a living workers collective demonstration that “Life is a Carnival” to be loved and enjoyed every day. The food was affordable, vegetarian, healthy grub rich in local vibrant ingredients, with lots of rice and beans and “free love”. The cafe was visited by the likes of Joni Mitchell, Allen Ginsburg, Black Elk, Dan Fogelberg, Steven Stills and even Patty Hearst when she was on the run. The Carnival Café offered a cherished look at “life as a dance waiting to be danced and a song waiting to be sung. …among all of one’s daily work and strife, you need to not just stop and smell the flowers along the way, but lie among them and be one yourself.” The Carnival Café ended with a Joni Mitchell song “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

Boulder would continue to have a long string of interesting, but ultimately short-,lived natural foods cafes until cooking techniques improved to make them famous. But if we could step back in time and return to tour the magical mysterious Carnival Café, even a bowl of simple rice and beans would surely delight us.

Patty Hearst (1954- ) a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army is not the only famous outlaw to dine in Boulder. The University of Colorado named its student cafeteria after Alfred Packer ( 1842-1907), the only man convicted of dining on his traveling companions. Cowboy Tom Horn had a restaurant named for him on the old Pearl Street, next to where Old Chicago’s and the Pearl Street Pub are today. You name a restaurant the “Tom Horn” because you want to tell stories to inspire the kids and you want to be identified with the old west and the quintessential last real cowboy. Steve McQueen played him in the 1980 movie “Tom Horn”.  Some of the legendary gunmen of the Old West were lawmen, but more, like Billy the Kid and Jesse James, were outlaws. Tom Horn (1860–1903) was both. Tom Horn’s final resting place is here in Boulder. He was a scout for the U.S. Calvary during the Apache Wars and helped capture Geronimo. Then he became active in the war between cattlemen and sheepmen and was hired in 1889 to handle investigations around Boulder and the Rockies. He became a hired gun for the ranchers but also did some law work. He even helped chase down Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch gang. He was a cowboy’s cowboy and some say the old west ended when he did.

There was a working-class restaurant tradition in Boulder with real diners that served breakfast before people had to go to work. And also places like the Broken Drum bar sometimes called the ‘Drunken Bum’ and Campbells Café that served hard working carpenters meals and beers after work. They were located near 15th and Pearl which is now one of the city’s best looking multi story car parking structures. A lot of tourists don't even know it's a parking structure. It has shops on the street level. And best view of the Flatirons on top.

The times were a changing with the emergence of the new Pearl Street pedestrian mall, and memories of the original diners and yesteryear cowboys were being forgotten. A new age was emerging with Zen Cowboys and newly minted cowboys pulling their horse trailer in their Cadillac while sipping their cappuccino latte drinks. Boulder restaurants, like Tom Horn’s that served a simple good meal enjoyed by those who knew the value of a hard-earned dollar were being replaced by new exotic cuisine. Some of it is quite delicious but fond memories of simpler times and simpler meals with real cowboys remain.

The original Dot’s Diner at 8th and Pearl St emerged at a unique juxtaposition of time in Boulder restaurant history. There were older diners, Greek restaurants that served the traditional breakfast fare and there was this new trend of people that loved breakfast later in the day because they stayed up all night. The traditional diners looked at people a little strangely if they came in looking for breakfast at the lunch hour. Dot’s saw this as an opportunity and created the brunch experience without any questions asked about why one was up so late the night before. Farm fresh eggs, served as you want them and a biscuit with raspberry jam unique to the Dot’s experience.

Dot’s started in a gas/car repair station with a couple tables inside and a small counter to serve guests. Over time the gas/repair station closed and the diner took over the entire former gas station. It became a community “Where folks meet to get their yolks”. In warm weather it had the best outdoor seating in town. Dot’s had expressive wait staff with tattoos and interior design filled with a collection of Barbie dolls showing off a new emerging culture. Basically, it was like Portlandia well before Portlandia became known as a thing.

Because of gentrification it could not last and people knew it. It made it all that much more bitter-sweet to enjoy. When the original Dot’s diner was going to close, they sold their name, recipes, decorum and design to new owners that bought a handful of the old declining Greek diners and turned them into Dot’s. You can still get a flavor of what the original Dot’s was at these various locations but somehow it does not match the original. Dot shared everything she knew about running Dot’s but without her heart in it there was always a little bit of something missing. They are still great restaurants to enjoy! And with new Nepalese cooks have added great curries and unique chai blends to their breakfast offerings. 

Don’s Cheese and Sausage Mart was another Boulder institution with lunch lines going out the door. They had fabulous bratwurst on a bun served with hot German potato salad and white beans. Between 1963 and 1987 Don’s changed ownership and moved into four different locations before slipping into bankruptcy. Highly popular with the lunch crowd, the cheese and meat market was more of a take and go deli than a sit down restaurant.

Don Olk, the market's founder, was a World War II veteran who moved to Boulder in 1961. Two years later, he opened his own business at 1908 Pearl St., in the former John Lund Hotel. Before long, Don founded the Boulder Sausage Co. and began making his own sausages from recipes said to have been passed down through his family. The potato salad was also his own recipe of crisp bacon, flour, bacon grease and water mixed with sugar, vinegar, onions, salt and pepper, then poured over cooked diced potatoes. By today’s standards the side dish was heavy on the grease but was highly popular back then. Other staples on the menu included sauerkraut, coleslaw, plenty of spicy hot mustard, and garlic dill pickles. In 1968 Don Olk sold out to Joseph Beeler who kept the name of Don's Cheese and Sausage Mart and ran the 1908 Pearl St. location until 1979, when he relocated the business to 2720 Baseline Road only a couple blocks away from the Best Western Plus Boulder Inn

In 1983, in addition to keeping the Baseline Road location, Beeler opened another Don's Cheese and Sausage Mart at 1580 Canyon Blvd. (east of the parking lot for Liquor Mart). Both the Baseline and Canyon locations closed in 1985. However, another Don's Mart opened at 2716 28th St., at Bluff St. (now the relocated home of Dot's Diner which had originally been at 7th and Pearl) and remained at that location until 1987.

Although a few additional Don's opened in other parts of Colorado, the 28th Street location was the last one in Boulder. By then, the delis (even with lines of people out the door) and the sausage company, under the same management, had slipped into bankruptcy. Sometimes outer success is not financial success. Selling off the deli locations allowed the Boulder Sausage Company to pay back taxes and debts and remain in business. Don’s Cheese and Sausage Mart is gone but their sausages live on in grocery stores. And with work you can make their potato salad recipe

5 pounds of bacon
6-2/3 cup flour
8 cups sugar
6-2/3 cup vinegar
5 oz salt
2 TB pepper
5 quarts hot water
3 cups diced onions
Cooked diced potatoes

Fry bacon until crisp. Drain. Mix flour into the bacon grease. Mix until thick paste forms. Add hot water. Add everything else. Mix over cooked diced potatoes and combine well. Serve warm with Boulder Sausage Company bratwursts, good sauerkraut, hot mustard and the best garlic dills you can find.

New York Deli History

The New York Deli was made famous by its fictional employee Mork from the planet Ork, played by Robin Williams in the 1970’s hit TV sitcom “Mork and Mindy”.  As amazing as the fictional comedic chef from outer space was, the true founding of the New York Deli at 1117 Pearl St is almost as unbelievable.

Above the New York Deli, where the Boulder Book Store now is, was the original Tibetan Buddhist Karma Dzong meditation hall and the original Naropa Buddhist and Beat Poet University both founded by Chogyyan Trungpa Rinpoche. Alan Schwartz and his wife came to Boulder to study Tibetan Buddhism and were challenged to make a living to support their meditation practice in a town with student dominated minimum wage jobs. In 1975 they were inspired to open a genuine New York style deli about 2,000 miles away from its supply chain. Was this a flash of brilliance? Or was it a flash of foolishness? With Robin Williams character Mork in their future, it had to be a bit of both.

From the first day there were lines around the block, and many comical disasters to laugh at. Outwardly the little New York Deli in Boulder Colorado was a smash hit. But sometimes an outward success can be an inward disaster. None of the owners had ever worked even a single day in a restaurant before. Now they were running an insanely busy deli from morning to night, every single day, which needed to get its key ingredients over 2,000 miles away. With all this busyness, it was disturbing to discover the illusion of their outward success stood in contrast to their private sinking experience.

They gained valuable financial advice from their meditation teacher who said, “When you are in the crocodile's mouth, you have to carefully examine every tooth." They were not experiencing cash flow loss due to any theft or major loss. Instead, they were suffering impending bankruptcy due to a thousand irregular slices - they were going broke a nickel at a time. Every time four and three-quarter ounces of pastrami (instead of four) went out between the slices of bread, every time a glass was dropped and broken, every time a server worked an hour when there was slack time, every time they sent someone to the supermarket because some ingredient ran out, another tiny sum of money flowed out rather than in. And of course, driven by the urge to ingratiate themselves to their customers, friends, and teachers, their prices were just a little too low. By paying attention to each tooth, they were able to save their business. It was a balance between being generous to your paying customers and watching out for every nickel and dime spent.

The New York Deli stayed in business about 25 years until high rents on the Pearl Street Mall forced it to close in June 1999, to be replaced with the trendy Hapa sushi bar. On closing day, "I was here on opening day, and I'm here on closing day,'' said Bob Chervin, who estimated he's eaten at the deli 500 times. "This place reminds me of my roots. I had to have my pastrami on rye, my chicken matzoh-ball soup, and my Dr. Brown's celery tonic one last time. Can't get it anywhere else done right but in New York city or in this restaurant.''

John Lehndorff Boulder’s food critic and enthusiast extraordinaire, with over 40 years’ experience nibbling around town, called the late 1970’s in Boulder “the golden age of the fern bars” ranging from JJ McCabe’s to The Walrus, Potter’s, Pearl’s, and Pelican Pete’s; they all served casual fare. Pelican Pete’s on Arapahoe and Folsom owned by Pete Brophy was one of the first places in Boulder to serve fresh seafood requiring a supply line over 2,000 miles that had to be delivered by air to still be fresh.

Brunch became an every-weekend occasion, embraced at places like Nancy’s Restaurant, Lucille’s, Jose Muldoon’s, and Dot’s Diner. You could have your wake-up meal big, loud and messy at The Aristocrat Steakhouse (sometimes called “The Artistic Rat") at Broadway and Spruce with their 13 egg omelets and foul-mouthed cook. They were always hiring new waitresses.

Ferns and the aroma of spiced tea decorated The Good Earth Restaurant, which tapped a growing desire for a more comfy, natural-foods dining experience. It later became The Harvest and now has metamorphosed into is Turley’s Kitchen.

Beer snobs who were sipping foreign brews had a series of “aha!” moments. The first was the opening of the Boulder Beer Company, which introduced the novel idea of truly local ales. The next was the debut of the Great American Beer Festival, which started in Boulder at the Hilton Harvest House (now the Millennium Hotel) and was a game-changing glimpse of craft brews to come. The dawn of restaurant beer lists, notably the 100-beer menu at the first Old Chicago (formerly Walt & Hank’s), added to local brew sophistication. 

From “Fourty Years of Nibbling”—by John Lenhdorff:
https://thebouldermag.com/forty-years-nibbling/

The Age of Ferns, A Toast!
After three decades or so writing and talking about local food, I sometimes blur Boulder’s culinary present and past. I was eating a burrito at Illegal Pete’s (Pearl and 15th) but thinking about working there as a cook when it was Café Circolo. The marinara sauce there kept turning bad overnight, so a shaman was enlisted to clear the space. It seemed to calm the ghosts. A few years later I made omelettes (only $1.95 each) when the space became the Heartland Café, and ate moo-shu pork when it was Golden Mountain Chinese Restaurant. I look at The Attic Bistro, open a decade now on Walnut Street, and flash back to Scornavacco’s, Molly’s Back Room (where I first heard Hot Rize, the legendary bluegrass band, perform), and Hunan Garden.

So let us raise a glass of Boulder-made vodka, mead, wine or kombucha to the pioneers: chefs like John Bizzarro, Jim Smailer and Antonio Laudisio, farmers like John Ellis, and all the bakers, homebrewers, chocolatiers, cooking teachers, wine sellers, coffee roasters, cheesemongers, restaurateurs and activists who’ve made this such a remarkable place to eat. As for Boulder’s food future, only one thing is certain: In 40 more years, someone like me will wonder how we survived here under such primitive culinary conditions.

Comment Threads from site:

Fred’s

Walter Lawry, The Hotel Boulderado 's most famous permanent 70s resident, has a lane named after him (Lawry’s Lane). Walter's lane followed his footsteps as he inched his way very slowly from the Hotel to Fred's, his favorite restaurant. Mr. Lawry sat in that chair for many hours each day. “When we cleaned out his room, there were piles of books on Astral Projection. Who knew!" He ate at Fred's every day for breakfast. It must have taken him an hour to 'walk' there from the hotel.

It was a great place to work, nice co-workers and customers, delicious food. I was actually the relief pie maker for a while - including that morning coffee cake.

It’s the only place I can ever remember that you ordered your pie before your meal so your favorite flavor would still be available.! My brother and I loved the Monster Cheeseburger!! Such good memories.

Life is uncertain, order your pies first. I loved fun loving Fred playing for all of us. He was my Sunday school teacher before I was a hostess/cashier for him at the Boulderado until 1968.

I ate lunch at Fred's at least twice a week—always a cheeseburger, with Fred playing, and old Mr. Lowry asleep in his soup... life seemed simple and steady.

I was looking through some old phone books at the Carnegie and found an entry from the early 1960s that called it "Fred's Columbine Cafe." I forgot that it had been the Columbine Cafe before Fred took it over.

I hear you...have lived in New Haven for 32 years and ALL my dreams, even when having to do with events HERE, take place in Boulder!!!

Before the Pearl Street Mall, Fred's was the only reason, just about, to go downtown. Great breakfasts!

It's so weird, but I can still taste the fries from Fred's.

Yes, "Fred's" (where Antica Roma is now) was owned by Fred Shelton who entertained guests by singing and playing guitar...known for his pies.

Nothing quite like Fred's @ the Boulderado for Monster Cheeseburgers and a slice of Fred's wife’s amazing cream pies. Of course, we ordered the pie before our meal so they didn't sell out in the meantime.

I always liked the balloon animals that they made for us kids at Fred's in the Boulderado!

I worked for Fred for years and Irma was who made the pies, not his wife. Butterscotch was my favorite.

And of course the live entertainment by Fred was way before its time!!

The original Fred's Columbine Cafe was across from the courthouse in half of what the final Fred's came back to after the Boulderado. My dad bought both the old restaurant and I think it was a Card shop next door, and we tore down the wall in between. It over tripled the size of the original, but was a lot smaller than the Boulderado.— Fred Shelton Jr.

Tom’s Tavern

Historical building / mortuary / tavern

Roger Ebert’s favorite place.

Gondolier

All you can eat special and moves around town.

Some things in Boulder have not changed:
"Gondolier Italian Eatery: The holidays are here and money is getting tight... we can help! Enjoy All You Can Eat Spaghetti, every Tuesday, for only $6.99!" some people must like it. It has been in business for over 50 years.

They've moved about 4 times. Now out near Baseline and Foothills Pkwy. Anyone remember a waitress named Ruth? She was always fun and theatrical.

I worked with Ruth...had been a missionary to Togo, well read, nice woman.

Ruth is still one our best friends and was in the Peace Corps in Tonga. Also having dinner tomorrow with Marcia Weins who was a server there also.

When I was 12 or 13 yrs old, I was told by our waiter that "if you eat one more plate, you'll break the record for most plates eaten" I had to stop at 13, so I didn't break the record.

Illegal Pete’s

TBT: In the late 1970s I worked at a natural foods restaurant called Café Circolo at the northeast corner of the brand new downtown mall. It closed - some say the marinara was haunted - and was replaced by the Heartland Café where I also worked for a while making oven omelets and killer cinnamon rolls. Later the space was a Chinese restaurant and now is home to Illegal Pete's. I was told there were eateries at the location going back to the 1940s at least.

Rocky Mountain Joe’s

Rocky Mountain Joe's for waffles and home fries!! YUM!

Tico’s to Burkes to Rio Grande

Mr. Fabrisio bought the building from my maternal Grandfather Eldon Baird, he owned the tire store. Mr. Fabrisio would be about 83 now. Now go have a marg and reminisce.

BEST Mexican restaurant EVER!!!!!

TICO’S GUAC RECIPE

Avocados
A surprisingly large amount of sour cream
Salt
Raw tomatoes, pureed
Onions, severely diced
Small quantity of jalapeno pepper

Tico's also had an awesome bean dip. It was called something like Mexi Deli Rosa

Tico's had a ponsonita sundae that was a triangle of fried dough (sopapilla, really) with ice cream and a wine sauce that tasted like Manischewitz.

And so Tico's returns to be a topic of conversation once again. . .

Our family was friends with Warren Fabrizio of Ticos and a former partner at the Gondolier... Two of my favorite old time Boulder restaurants..

I used to see Warren in Aspen from time to time, usually at the infamous Paragon. I overdosed on Guac at Ticos waiting for a boyfriend to get off work there. Warren would even bring me some himself, "on the house." It's the only thing I'd eat there because I deemed it healthy. To this day I enjoy Guacamole only in small amounts! Where is Warren now?

Not positive, but I believe Warren is still in Denver part of the art community last I heard and other partners name?? from Ticos still make a line of restaurant sauces/food products etc etc. using the original recipes. Gorged on a variety of samples while attending a Nobel Sysco Food show last year...

Hungry Farmer   

Hungry Farmer had a great bar stage. Always really good acts.

Yep - my friends played in the band Propinquity there, every Sunday night.

Kip Carpenter played there too…Played in a group called The Lovin Sound. There.

My only fond memory of The Hungry Farmer was....... one morning about 6am coming in to work (fall of 75), "Spirit" was playing there, I think for a two-night gig. So (the late) Ed Cass Cassidy's drums were all set up to play (including his very fat sticks). Aspiring drummer that I was, I couldn't resist a 10-minute solo! It was a great moment in my personal history and one that I would never forget. Not Buddy Rich's drums, but close!!!

Does anyone else remember a model train that ran along the top of the wall.

Watermelon whoopee.

I believe that was a rum based concoction. There are vodka versions as well. It was just fun to have that enormous thing brought to the table for all to sip from!

Wait staff went down to "Grannies wine cellar" to get wine.

Soup in the cast iron cauldron!

Rocky Mountain oysters & Bacardi Cocktails

Saw a great show with Roy Buchanan and the Snake Stretchers there.

Saw George Thorogood and the destroyers there before they hit it big.

George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers played there in 1978 or '77, now I can't remember...

I remember the waiters would refill the water glasses over their shoulder or by balancing it on their foot. It was awesome!

I remember a group named "Propinquity" playing there? Great times.

Yes, Carla is still a very dear friend - and still creating, teaching, and paying music. And I am still in awe of her.

My brother used to work at the Hungry Farmer. I remember watching him practice pouring water into a glass around his back, and coffee to a cup on top of his foot in the kitchen.

Giant watermellon bowl filled to the brim with margs!

Yep, I was a bus boy and waiter there in 1980-81. Performing the high pour with water and coffee was a hallmark there. Very few customers disliked it when an occasional droplet landed on them.

Sebastian’s

Restaurateur Wayne Dozier passed away. If you recall, Wayne owned Bananas, Sebastian's and other iconic Boulder restaurants in the 70's. Great times at his establishments.

What about "Sebastian'a". On the walls, there were pictures of Old Masters but the faces had all been replaced by a likeness of Sebastian (a sort of cartoon character.) At Xmas, the ladies were given poinsettias and, at Easter and Mother's Day, ladies got lily plants.

Our family just loved Sebastian's salad bar, as well as their other food. I thought Sebastian's face on the many paintings there was maybe similar to the owner's image--Wayne Dozier, but I could be wrong. Anyway, the IHOP (not an A frame like it was on Baseline in the old days) is in that approximate location now.

I worked as a busboy, waiter and manager at Sebastian's on 28th Street in 1970's. Great steak & seafood and the baklava was fantastic! Sebastian's also had one of the best wine lists that I have ever seen, before or since. I actually got to taste an 1870 (approx.) Chateau Lafite Rothschild...amazing bottle, worth about $20,000 in today's dollars.

Went to Sebastians for New Year's Eve one year. Wayne Dozier came out at midnight dressed as the New Year Baby ~yes, in a large diaper, pouring champagne! Years later he went "bigger time," ha! with Bananas and a partnership in Pearls on the mall. Bananas was fun to work at and so innovative! Another Sebastians memory..a friend and I were treating ourselves for dinner when two guys at the next table joined our conversation and eventually our table. They were Firefall's Jock Barkley and another member of the band. Everything was going quite well until I said how much I liked "Heard it in a Love Song." ~A Marshall Tucker song, NOT Firefall! ~Wasn't there a salad bar at Sebastians with a sign on the herring that said, "no sharing the herring?" I still use that phrase from time to time for a multitude of things and it just dawned on me where it maybe came from...?

Mitch and I worked together at Sebastian's Restaurant, back in the early 80's. Mitch signed over the title to his Volvo and handed the keys over to a deserving panhandler on the Pearl Street Mall, and told him to "Have a nice life". He will be missed

Mitch worked at Sebastian's in the early 80s. Unforgettable.

The chef at Sebastians taught me to put ribeye steak in my homemade vegetable soup.

I worked at The Imperial Emporium in 1976, when it first opened. That's the first time I met Mr. Dozier. I then worked at Sebastian's, helped open Banana's in Boulder and enjoyed The Arapahoe Ranch, Pearls and Murphy's. Wayne was a fascinating man, and I still adhere to the motto: Moderation is for Monks, Take Big Bites. Here's to you, Mr. D!

Wayne’s obituary and story: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/timescall/obituary.aspx?n=wayne-dozier&pid=175966795&fhid=6452

I had the fortune to run into Mr. Dozier and his wife Mary several years ago when he was doing some photography. We had a wonderful conversation about his days in the restaurant business and his passion for photography!

Peggy’s Hi Lo

Peggy's Hi-Lo club that was at 47th and the Diagonal. It was a great place to kick up your heels and dance to live Country Western music! Here's a link to an article about the manager of the club. She definitely was a legend! http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_23143203/ellie-halliday-former-manager-peggys-hi-lo-boulder

Village coffee shop

It is so good. #1 ham, over easy, side of green, dump and mix. Same as it was 35 years ago.

Almost always a line outside

It's in a little strip mall on the west side of Folsom between Arapahoe and Canyon.

The Sink

The Sink Celebrates 90 Years of Business in Boulder: http://denver.eater.com/2013/9/23/6371425/the-sink-celebrates-90-years-of-business-in-boulder
The Sink History: https://www.thesink.com/sink-timeline
Former bar owner reflects on the Sink and Tulagi’s:  http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_15852521

Eddie’s Mexican Cafe

Eddies was at the corner of Baseline and 28th...closer to Dark Horse, Willi Villi etc. 2 totally different places.

Wasn't Eddie's owned by Eddie Crowder - old football coach for CU?

Yes, Eddie's was owned by Eddie Crowder. Then had great happy hour and I lived on the chips and salsa.!!!!

Eddie's was the first place I ever ate flour chips. Remember those? The baskets had both flour and corn chips. Yum!

I can't believe no-one has tried to recreate those chips. They'd make a fortune. They were the best ever.

My first "real" dinner date was at Eddie's.

Misc.

Did not see Tyler's Applewood Pit on the list. Originally on a main block on Pearl, south side. Had booths, tables, and a great counter to sit up at. My mother and I would have lunch after her shopping rounds at Kahn's, Brooks Fauber, Crowders, Smith's Shoes, and Joslins.
The restaurant moved to 30th and became just Tyler's. The Ethiopian place is there now.

Not anymore. The entire complex (along with the strip that had Swalley's Music) was demolished about two months ago.

Round the corner (The Hill, Table Mesa and Crossroads). 99 cent pitchers. The best EVER "Goddess" salad dressing. I would kill for that recipe!