Last Tuesday I joined some friends from church for LoDo Bites, an eating and drinking tour of restaurants in lower downtown Denver. There were about 20 different restaurants participating in LoDo Bites, and for a $25 ticket we could get food and/or drink samples from any of those establishments. The weather was perfect too, sunny but not hot or windy.
Here’s a tour of our LoDo Bites experience:
Stop #1: Rio Grande. Free stuff: Tortilla chips, guacamole, salsa, and a marinated shrimp. Mini-margaritas were apparently free too, but when the server asked if we wanted margaritas and a few of us said yes, they gave us full-size margs (which were $2 off at least). We weren’t complaining, as margarita is a good way to start off an evening out on the town.
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Stop #2: Celtic Tavern. Free stuff: Irish potato boat, pulled pork bbq sandwich, bread pudding.
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Stop #3: Vesta. Free stuff: One bite of some tangy salad-like substance in a tiny cup. Not sure what it was, but it tasted good and only took about 2 seconds to eat.
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Stop #4: The Tavern Downtown. Free stuff: Hamburger sliders, fried chicken sliders, bbq pork sliders, pizza, samples of frozen drinks including hurricanes. Add in the rooftop deck kitty-corner from Coors Field, and this was my favorite place of the night.
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Stop #5: Fadó Irish Pub. Free stuff: 4 oz. Irish beers. I love Irish pubs. I tried a Kilkenny for the first time, and then good ol’ Smithwick’s. Tom & I talked to the Irish bartender for a bit too, and he was pretty cool. He even mentioned that he absolutely hates Pennsylvania, because of speeding tickets and the apparently-monotonous Appalachian landscape along the PA Turnpike. Maybe he meant monotonously beautiful, haha.
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Stop #6: Wynkoop Brewing Company. Free stuff: Cake (either shortcake with berries or chocolate cheesecake) and beer (either an IPA or a porter). Fantastic.
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Stop #7: McCormick’s Fish House & Bar. Free stuff: Lemon drop martinis. I had two because the others didn’t feel like waiting for them. Their loss. I wanted to get my money’s worth! 🙂
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Stop #8: Big Game Sports Bar. Free stuff: Cheeseburger sliders, chicken parm sliders, sushi rolls with wasabi, and hurricane shots (or something like it). I was late because of my two martinis, so I had to chow down quickly here, haha. Good stuff.
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Stop #9: Backcountry Provisions. Free stuff: Roast beef sandwiches, veggie wraps, and one other type of sandwich. Starting to get full…
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Stop #10: Dixon. Free stuff: Aztec chicken and corn chips. It was good, but the main attraction here was one of the horrendously out-of-tune outdoor pianos across the street.
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Stop #11: Lime. Free stuff: Margaritas. It sure seemed like Lime was the least enthusiastic participant in LoDo Bites, because it was crowded and there wasn’t a section reserved for LoDo Bites customers, unlike every other place we went. Part of our group went somewhere else by this point though, which was a shame because this was the only place where I got a group photo.
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LoDo Bites is definitely a cool event. I had a lot of fun that night in Denver, and I think I got my money’s worth of food and drink!