Category Archives: My Favorites

Black Eyed Pea Restaurants Slumping In Denver

Every once in an while I get asked about my bias towards mom and pops or local owned restaurants versus chains. Certainly there are a lot of good chains out there that deserve to get reviewed and to be eaten in.

The Black Eyed Pea used to be one that I enjoyed going to for their great comfort food. They are a smaller chain that has restaurants in Colorado and Texas and used to be a favorite. Even though it is a larger chain it still had its origins in Colorado so I enjoyed going there at least once a month or more.

But my last few visits here though have been pretty dissapointing. They seem to go through cycles of ups and downs in food quality and I keep hoping that they will get their mojo back. A couple of years ago they were flying high with a great combination of good food and service.

While the service is still pretty good recently their food seems to have taken a dip, and a big one at that, in quality. By the time that the food got to our table it was lukewarm. The chicken fried steak that I had and the pot roast my dinner partner had (both of which used to be their specialties) were both sorry copies of their former selves.

The chicken fried steak was bland and overcooked. The pot roast was so over cooked it came in the form of stringy strands of beef and potatoes and carrots that had obviously been cooked seperately then combined since they had none of the robust beef flavor that a good pot roast gives to its vegetables.

All in all it was a pretty sad birthday lunch for my freind and we ended up going someplace else the next day to make up for it. Hopefully the peole at the Black EYed Pea will get their stuff back together again but I know that I am not going back for a while. Give me bad food once and I’ll write it off as a bad night but three times and I’m spendin my money else where.

Lunch in the Snow

Leave a reply

Denver is having one of its frequent winter storms today. And with the storms comes the question; go out to eat or order delivery. During times like this I always like to be lazy and order from one of my favorite restaurants that serve one of my favorites.

I’m always willing to pay an extra tip to the delivery driver so that I can sit in my nice warm apartment. Many of the places that I order from are Chinese or Japanese. I especially like these because they have nice hot soups that are especially tasty when its cold outside.

Wahoos In Denver

Leave a reply

Wahoos is one of those exceptions to my rule of never eating in chain restaurants. Wahoos in Denver is a small chain that offers great food at reasonable prices. Don’t expect to have table service, you have to order at the counter when you come in although they do deliver it to your table.

They also seem to change their menu with the seasons. keeping most of their basics but offering different things during different seasons. The stores are a little noisy because of their cement floors but they are also always immaculate. The service is also top knotch with freindly, usually younger staff.

They are always ready to recommend different items to people which is good because the first few times when you go there the menu can be a little confusing. You can tell that they are trying to keep it simple but the menu can still be confusing. Even after several years of going there I can get confused.

Lunch is usually busy and packed with the line going to and even out the door but it usually moves fast and the food gets to your table just as fast. It’s also fresh and healthy without being too “granola”.

Zocalo Disappoints

Leave a reply

I recently wrote a post about Zocalo located at 11th and Broadway in Denver. Up till this last night I have been pretty happy but my meal there tonight was pretty bad.

Let me say first that as a person who has worked in restaurants I tend to be pretty forgiving. Yet tonight was just sad.

I went with a freind for a meal at 5PM. They were busy but we were happy to wait since they usually serve pretty good food. Tonight though the service was slow, they brought one of the meals wrong, and the french fries were burnt and hard. Not crunchy, just hard.

The worst though was that it took us almost a half an hour to get our check. I’ve talked before about how important I think customer loyalty cards are in making customers return. The loyalty cards that Zocalo uses are pretty simple. You buy six meals and you get one for free. The wait people sign the numbers from one to six until the card is filled.

In the past we had always had one credit for each meal that we bought. Tonight I noticed that the waitress, even though we had bought two meals, had only marked one credit. When I asked why she said that it was only one credit per card. I explained that in the past it had been one credit per meal but she insisted that it was only one per card.

Needless to say my loyalty card isn’t going to get much use for a while. I won’t write them off because I understand that even the best places can have a bad night. But having this change after going through several loyalty cards where it was one credit per meal and the quality of the meal and service were much better it was aggravating and this loyalty card is going to the back of my wallet.

Loyalty Cards

Leave a reply

I love loyalty programs. I love going to those places where they offer you a card that accumulates points towards a free lunch. To me they just scream that the restaurant wants you to come back, that they appreciate having you as a customer. One of my favorite is Tokyo Joes .

Sure, I would guess that they can be a pain in the behind to administer, and they do cost a little bit of money, but they work. In this day and age where everything is computerized there is no reason not to have these cards. Sure, some of the higher end places would look down their nose at them but I don’t mind.

I still watch for coupons for those expensive places like the Broker Restaurant and have no problem with using them. Things just cost too much to miss out on these savings. I have a freind that carries a box with the latest coupons from a variety of places. He is in sales so is constantly taking people out to eat and those coupons save him a bundle.

And the cards pay for the restaurant too. What does every restaurant, no matter how fancy or how big really want? Return customers! In my wallet right now I have no less than eight cards to different restaurants that I regularly visit. Whenever I am deciding where to go for lunch I always think about where I can go and whip out my card. It’s like saying to the other customers, “hey, I’m special.”

And nothing beats the feeling of having a full card and getting a free lunch. Plus, a lot of the places send you regular e-mails with offers over e-mail.