I recently spent 4 days in Denver with my boyfriend Andrew. He bought me tickets to see Kacey Musgraves at Red Rocks Amphitheater for Christmas, so we have been planning this trip for awhile.
We really enjoyed all the food, beer, amazing views and friendly people Denver has to offer. This post is organized by neighborhood, so read on to find out about the different areas of Denver I got to explore!
Highland Neighborhood
We stayed at an Airbnb in the Highland neighborhood, so a majority of the breweries and restaurants we ate at were in this area. Although it seems most people in Denver drive places, this area was very walkable. Some of the places we went were recommended to us, and others we just stopped in because we thought they looked fun or interesting.
Highland Area Restaurants
Avanti
Our first food stop in Denver was at Avanti, which is a food court style restaurant with 7 different food stalls, including fried chicken, poke, tacos, French food, arepas, pizza, and rotisserie. It also has two bars, and a nice outdoor area with a great view of downtown.
Gallop Cafe
Gallop has a cute outdoor seating area and good coffee and food. If you’re looking for a nice little breakfast spot, this is it! We actually ended up eating breakfast at this café twice… the second time we were hoping to eat at Wooden Spoon, which apparently has very delicious breakfast sandwiches, but the line was out the door so we decided to head back across the street to get a table at Gallop again.
Brider
The restaurant is an interesting concept and we decided to go at the last minute, but I’m very glad we did! The restaurant has very high-quality food, but you order at the counter, including any alcoholic beverages you want (which were very reasonably priced, $8 Old Fashioneds!!) and then they deliver it all to your table. They have dinner entrees but Andrew and I both ordered sandwiches. I got one of their most popular sandwiches, the Wagyu Beef French Dip, and Andrew got a Bahn Mi.
Highland Area Breweries
Zuni Street Brewing Company
We decided to stop in here after walking by it a few times. They have a patio in the front and in the back, with a million dogs on each one… what more could you ask for? This brewery also had my favorite beers of the whole trip, Narajus IPA, which was a sweet orangey IPA.
If you get hungry while you’re there, there is usually a food truck parked out front.
Denver Brewing Co & Cervecería Colorado
Denver Brewing Co and Cervecería Colorado are on Platte Street right across from Brider. Both places have really great outdoor seating, and also have a nice indoor vibe. Denver Brewing Co has a more traditional offering, whereas Cervecería has beers with Mexican flavors. They have a pineapple beer, poblano beer, and horchata beer.
They serve chips and salsa at Cervecería and have a pizza food truck parked next to Denver Brewing Company.
Prost!
This German style brewery looks like a German beer hall on the inside and has a large patio out front! It’s also right across the street from Avanti, so it’s the perfect place to go for a beer after dinner or lunch. The food offering here is a large German pretzel!
Tennyson Street
If you have a few hours, head to Tennyson St to grab some food, beer, or just walk along the cute street and check out all the gift shops, clothing boutiques, and art galleries. There is also a park at the north end of the street, but we didn’t get a chance to check it out.
We stopped in for some coffee at Allegro Coffee Roasters then walked around until we were hungry for lunch.
We were in the mood for Mexican, and we really loved Tres Chiles. How cute are the giant coffee mugs they serve their chips in?!
Andrew and I loved our food, he got a smothered burrito and I got enchiladas with three different sauces.
After lunch we walked to Call to Arms Brewing, which had a nice vibe, and good beer (with some comical names, mine was called Lil Sebastian – for all you Parks & Rec fans.)
Other Neighborhoods In Denver
RiNo
There are so many breweries in the RiNo neighborhood, and unfortunately we only got to try out one, Epic Brewing Company. I would recommend spending more time in this neighborhood exploring and trying a few more breweries.
We ended up hanging out at Epic Brewing for a few hours and sampling a lot of their beers before we took a bus out to Red Rocks Amphitheater for a concert. Bus to Show is a not for profit whose mission is to prevent drunk driving to concerts. They have several pickup locations around the Denver area and allow you to bring drinks on the bus!
Ball Park Area
Andrew is a huge baseball fan and hopes to one day see a game at all the MLB stadiums… so we went to a Rockies game one night. From certain parts of the stadium you can see the Rockie Mountains from your seat, and if you go to a night game you can see the sunset behind the Rockies.
After the game we went to View House, and it happened to be ladies night, so I got to drink for free! I’m not sure if that’s an every Thursday special, but if it is, it’s worth checking out! They had a large outdoor area with lawn games, and a lot of outdoor seating.
Denver Brewing Company and Cerveceria are also about a mile from the stadium, so if you don’t mind the walk they’re a great place to have a beer before the game because they’re just far enough they weren’t too crowded.
All Over Denver
If you’re a fan of Chipotle or Qdoba, then you have to try Illegal Pete’s. It’s Denver’s own little take on fast casual Mexican food. Every location also has a full bar! I thought the food was really good, and if you’re looking for a cheaper meal, this is the place to go!
Beyond Denver
Boulder
We rented a car one day of the trip to drive out to the Boulder area for a hike. We used Getaround which is a lot easier than having to go to a car rental company. If you use my referral link you can get $20 off your first rental!
We hiked the Mesa Trail, which connects to many other trails so it’s very easy to chose whatever trail length and difficulty you like. There is also a government weather building that has a small museum area in the lobby as well as bathrooms and water fountains which is really nice for before and after the hike. Search for “NCAR Mesa Laboratory” for the directions to the parking lot.
We then drove into Boulder to find a place to eat lunch. Pearl St is the main area of downtown Boulder, and several blocks of the street are pedestrian only. We ended up eating at Foolish Craig’s which is only open for breakfast and lunch, but it was really good, and Andrew and I both enjoyed our food.
Golden
We were planning on visiting the Coors Factory for a tour. We have toured Budweiser and Miller breweries and enjoyed them both, so we thought we’d mark Coors off our list. We took an Uber to Golden which was about $20. When we showed up to the tour, we were told it was a 2 hour wait, and you had to wait outside in a parking lot with no seats. We decided not to do that…
Instead we walked around downtown Golden which is a very small area. We stopped in at Buffalo Rose, which is a newly reopened restaurant, in an old building dating back to the 1800’s. We enjoyed watching people floating down the river right through town and went to check out the farmer’s market, but it was being packed up for the day.
Other Denver Info
Logistics
Denver is a relatively small city, and you don’t have to rent a car for your whole trip. We only rented one for one day, when we went hiking. Otherwise we walked everywhere or called an Uber when I was feeling lazy. All the Ubers we took were reasonably priced.
The airport is pretty far outside of Denver. There is a train, but the tickets were $10 a person, which we thought was outrageous. If you’re traveling alone it might be worth it, but for two or more people you should plan to split an Uber.
Breweries In General
There are several things that all the breweries we went to have in common:
1) None of them actually serve food. Many of them sell chips or popcorn but that’s it. However, a majority of them have a food truck parked near their patio.
2) To accommodate non beer drinkers and people with gluten allergies, many breweries now make their own hard seltzer.
3) Because the breweries do not serve food, dogs are allowed to come inside most of them!
Are there any neighborhoods I missed out on and need to explore the next time I’m in Denver? Any of your favorite breweries I missed? Let me know and leave a comment!
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2 Comments
What a neat trip! I haven never taken a ride like this, but I think it would be fun. I loved your pictures, it looks like you saw some really pretty places!
That sounds amazing. If I ever go solo I’ll have to check out all these restaurants, the cities look amazing.