Innehållsförteckning för October 2022 från 5280 Magazine

FROM THE EDITOR Dining Out Here’s something you probably don’t hear all that often: I don’t like takeout. During the height of the pandemic, I knew I should support local eateries (and I did occasionally), but having restaurant-caliber food has always, to me, been about the theater of eating out. Cramming an exquisite, chef-prepared meal into a to-go container and eating it at the kitchen table just seems so antithetical to the experience of dining. Which is why I’m delighted—for you, and for me—that life has returned to a (relative) state of normality that has allowed us, after a two-year pause, to bring back our “25 Best Restaurants” franchise. For the past five months, 5280’s tireless food team has been sitting at chef’s counters, parsing menus old and new, ordering…

20 Seasons Sakic, originally from British Columbia, played in the NHL—all with the same franchise. (Hint: It’s the Avalanche.) 993 Points (goals plus assists) current Colorado star Nathan MacKinnon would need to score to tie Sakic’s career mark of 1,641. Sakic is the Avs’ all-time leader in points, goals, assists, and awesomeness. 3 People, including Sakic, who have won Stanley Cups as players and general managers for the same franchise. This summer, the Avs promoted Sakic to president of hockey operations.…

Let’s be clear: Denver is still not a buyer’s market. But with interest rates rising, “gone are the days that a seller can simply put a sign in the yard and expect their home to sell,” the Denver Metro Association of Realtors declared late this past summer. Houses sat for an average of 19 days in August, a 46 percent increase over the previous month. “With this slight market shift, you need to be the coolest option in [your home’s price range],” says Kelly Reed, a broker with Milehimodern. The former interior designer has spent the past few years perfecting what she calls her mini-flip process, in which she persuades sellers to pay for “minor changes with massive impact” (think: paint, light fixtures, and staging, not kitchen counters or bathroom…

Most of us are familiar with churros, the cinnamon-and-sugar-dusted, chewy-on-the-inside-but-crispy-on-the-outside fried dough that’s a dessert-menu staple at Mexican restaurants. Jose Manuel Marquez, however, is on a mission to convince Coloradans that churros can and should be devoured not just after dinner, but also as a midday snack and for breakfast, à la American doughnuts. “[In Spain], my father and I would go down to the churreria at 5 or 6 a.m. and wait in an hourlong line,” says Marquez, who hails from Andalusia’s Jerez de la Frontera. “You’d see the people making the churros fresh and smell the oil and the churros frying.” That’s why, this past December, the pastry pro opened Churreria de Madrid inside Aurora’s Stanley Market-place with partners Lorena and Daniel Cantarovici (the couple behind Maria Empanada,…

There’s not much to look at among the single-story warehouses that sit just east of I-25 before it curves around downtown Denver. The structures are prosaic; there’s no one around. The only real sounds come from the highway and a few trucks that pass by on the street, ignoring the speed limit. Spiderwebs glimmer in the corners of the doorway to a brick building on West 12th Avenue in the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood. Inside, it’s dusty. Near the center of the featureless gray room stands an easel with four images: renderings of Las Bodegas (the warehouses), a proposed 14,000-square-foot community art space with a recording studio, multimedia art room, classrooms, and a cafe. The drawings are step one in building a vibrant cultural campus that ultimately will span…

IT WAS THE BALLOT MEASURE THAT EARNED COLORADO THE SOBRIQUET “THE HATE STATE.” THIRTY YEARS AGO, COLORADO VOTERS PASSED AMENDMENT 2, WHICH WOULD BAR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS FROM CREATING ANTI-DISCRIMINATION PROTECTIONS FOR GAY PEOPLE. Although most political observers had predicted that the measure would fail, members of the gay community and their allies had been quietly plotting a legal assault on the amendment. Before it went into effect, opponents were able to win an injunction to stay its enforcement until a lawsuit called Evans v. Romer could decide its constitutionality. Colorado’s conservative attorney general, Gale Norton, went all in and enlisted a handful of experts to attest to Amendment 2’s morality, giving a platform to psychological testimony that falsely alleged homosexuals were more likely than heterosexuals to be child molesters. One…

5280’s new digital director may have joined the magazine in August, after working remotely as an editor at Seattle-based REI, but Horjus isn’t new to the Front Range. She’s called Boulder home since 2013. SEATTLE VS. DENVER ”The Emerald City’s mountains are more dramatic, but you hardly see them because, you know, the rain.” ON LIVING IN BOULDER ”I’m fairly certain they don’t let you in without a dog. (Mine: a scruffy heeler named Raider.)” QUINTESSENTIAL COLORADO ADVENTURE “I took the train from Durango, then hiked and skied seven miles up into the Chicago Basin to camp, slurp freeze-dried gruel, and wreck my skis on hidden rocks.” ON 5280.COM CENTER ICE October means it’s time for the puck to drop. With three reigning-champion hockey teams in the Mile High City,…

While social media has made connecting easier, it’s also full of partisans who are only interested in making you want to strangle your screen. So, to engender a more productive and peaceful exchange of ideas, we created a guide to help Denverites find their perfect third places (home and work are the first two). A proper third place is a physical location where conversation with your neighbors and strangers is the main activity. It needs to be neutral ground where anyone can go without expecting to pay more than a modest amount. And there should be regulars—but no real social hierarchy. There are plenty of qualifying spots in Denver, as long as you know how to find them. LIKE MAKING THINGS? YES. HOW ABOUT SWEARING? F@$K, YEAH! GRANDMA’S HOUSE This…

VALENTE’S DELI BAKERY & ITALIAN MARKET Westminster Shop: At 69-year-old Valente’s, the smell of simmering marinara sauce and the banter of regulars fill the air as Dino Valente (grandson of founder Fred Valente) slices customers’ mortadella. Must-buys include the house-made Italian sausage, 18-month-aged prosciutto di parma, smoky Scamorza affumicate cheese, Pastene dried mafaldine pasta, and lobster-stuffed frozen ravioli. As you stroll across the compact shop’s checkered floors, also load up on canned San Marzano tomatoes for making Bolognese and Dell’Alpe’s extra-hot, oil-packed giardiniera relish to upgrade everyday sandwiches. Eat: Pull up a chair at one of the four granite tables near the front windows to devour savory cannoli dunked in marinara: The warm rectangles of yeasted dough are stuffed with mini bricks of hot Italian sausage and strips of roasted…

KEY Regular Caspers Over Here Be Afraid…Be Very Afraid THE WATER BOY Hotel Jerome, Aspen Legend has it that a 10-year-old child drowned in the Jerome’s former pool (what’s now a garden terrace) in the 1930s. There’s no record of the incident, acknowledges Dean Weiler, who leads Aspen Walking Tours’ Ghosts, Murder, & Mayhem trip, but guests have reported visions of a wet, shivering child who leaves behind puddles of water and is responsible for confounding disappearances of toys. HEADLESS HOTEL GUESTS Victor Hotel & Restaurant, Victor During brutal winters in the early 1900s, the hotel’s fourth floor served as a temporary morgue until the ground thawed enough for burials. Even then, the departed seem to have had a difficult time, well, departing: Kitchen staff at the hotel have seen…

Out-of-state interests have spent more than $2.5 million to get Proposition 122 on next month’s ballot, and much of that money has come from California-based Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. CEO David Bronner, the grandson of the Dr. Bronner, has been a fan of psychedelics since taking a trip to Amsterdam in the 1990s. He believes mushrooms could help treat the mental health crisis in America and that legalizing the fungi under the supervision of the state—as outlined in Prop 122—is likely the best way to garner broad support. “Most of the psychedelically naive population is not comfortable yet in a decriminalized context,” Bronner says. Instead, novices may need the reassurance that comes with being guided by a licensed professional. Bronner’s support, however, could backfire: The money being spent in support…

Considering that the average classical music fan is older than 55, it’s not surprising that very little orchestra music is written for children. Denver’s Inside the Orchestra—the only professional orchestra in the world that does kid-focused programming exclusively—is helping to change that with A Surprise for Rabbit, the first original score in the nonprofit’s 37 seasons. “We really felt like we were the best organization to start commissioning and creating new symphonic stories for today’s audience,” executive director Shelby Mattingly says. Debuting this month during a local tour, the performance encompasses more than melodies to grab your minimaestro’s attention. AN OPEN BOOK Inside the Orchestra started the process by asking local author Denise Vega and local artists Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand and Leah Stephenson (a teenage illustrator) to create a…