Denver native Tony Garcia remembers filling up on enchiladas at Chubby’s when he was a college student in the early 1970s. “It was fast food — but it was good food,” he recalled of the original location of the legendary Mexican restaurant, 1231 W. 38th Ave., which still draws crowds hankering for burritos, hamburgers and French fries blanketed in spicy green chile.
Just a few blocks away, Lechuga’s, 3609 Tejon St., has always been the spot for cannolis — not the sweet variety, but a more substantive sausage wrapped in puffy dough, Garcia said. Across the street, Garcia buys his tamales at Tamales by La Casita, a 50-year-old Denver institution.
Related: This Denver institution makes 18,000 tamales per day — by hand
There’s also the gone-but-not-forgotten restaurants. Patsy’s, for instance, “was unabashedly old school; it was like going to an Italian restaurant from a 1940s movie,” remembered Garcia.
Rosa Linda Aguirre ran Rosa Linda’s Mexican Cafe for 30 years. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)
And Rosa Linda’s Mexican Cafe, which Rosa Linda Aguirre opened on West 33rd and Tejon Street in 1985 to feed both her family and her neighbors. The way she puts it: “We were like a bouquet, un florero.” As a thanks to the community — and to fulfill a promise to herself that she would feed the needy if her restaurant became successful — Aguirre served well over 50,000 turkey and green chile Thanksgiving meals before the restaurant eventually closed in 2015. Today, Aguirre and her son Oscar are carrying on the legacy with Tejon Food Co., which sells chorizo and spices.
Like many longtime Denverites, Garcia holds fond memories of eating at the Mexican and Italian restaurants that defined the restaurant landscape for decades on the city’s northside — which includes the Sunnyside, Berkeley, Highland and West Highland neighborhoods — and later became a destination for people all over the metro area.
“We were proud to have both of those communities represented,” said Garcia, who grew up in west Denver and is now a Chicano studies adjunct professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver and executive director of Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center.
These days, north Denver is defining the Mile High City’s dining scene in different ways. It’s home to a wildly diverse range of restaurants, from Asian standard bearers like Glo Noodle House, Ginger Pig and Ramen Star to sophisticated sandwich joints like Blackbelly Market, Odie B’s and the Grateful Gnome, as well as neighborhood staples like Pochitos Tortilla Factory, Parisi and Tacos Jalisco, and even the Michelin-starred Wolf’s Tailor.
Hungry for more? Here are 14 restaurants helping shape Denver’s Northside culinary scene.
Old-school restaurants
The Original Chubby’s
Stella Cordova bought Chubby’s Burger Drive-Inn in 1967, adding her famous green chile to the burgers and expanding the menu. She was a fixture at the restaurant until she passed away at age 100 in 2006. Among a small number of Denver restaurants that stay open late, Chubby’s serves hungry night owls until 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. 1231 W. 38th Ave.
Kitchen manager Rosendo Ramirez prepares to serve two plates of the spaghetti special at Lechuga’s Italian Restaurant in Denver on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Lechuga’s Italian
Lechuga’s hasn’t changed its recipe for sausage cannolis since it started serving them (invented them, perhaps) in 1961. The Little Devil cannoli is rolled with jalapenos and smothered in cheese and red sauce. The family restaurant does an $8 spaghetti night on Tuesdays, and serves spaghetti in buckets throughout the week. 3609 Tejon St.
Gaetano’s has a long and storied history in Denver. (Cyrus McCrimmon, Denver Post file)
Gaetano’s
Go for the mob lore, stay for the pasta. Gaetano’s is a neighborhood restaurant housed in a 1925 building that dishes out pizza, pasta and serves brunch on the weekend, with Italian dishes like buttery, peppery cacio e pepe sharing the menu with chicken and waffles. It has changed ownership several times over the decades, but was at one time run by the Smaldone crime family, who turned it into a hotbed for illegal gambling and bootlegging in the 1940s. 3760 Tejon St.
Carl’s Pizza
A nostalgic pizzeria that opened in 1953, Carl’s also serves spaghetti and meatballs, calzones and quarts of minestrone soup. The original owner was from Chicago, but these pizzas are made with a medium crust that’s not too thick, but not thin, either. Like Gaetano’s, Carl’s also had a bit of reputation at one point: The cops ate in the front room and the crooks in the backroom, recalled shop owner John Ludwig in an interview for a collective memory project on the Northside put together by History Colorado. 3800 W. 38th Ave.
Patzcuaro’s
While the sign and patio may be newer, Patzcuaro’s is a Denver institution: It opened in 1978 and is considered by some to be Denver’s first taqueria. Menu staples include tacos, like the tender pork ones marinated in adobo sauce, steaks smothered in salsa and enchiladas. Do yourself a favor and take a quart of green chile home. 2616 W 32nd Ave.
Rosa Dias fills a bowl with red chile and pork to make tamales by hand at Tamales by La Casita on Nov. 28, 2023, in Denver. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Tamales by La Casita
This 50-year-old family-run mainstay doesn’t sell only tamales, but that’s mainly what people from far and wide come in for, lugging out their favorite, in red or green, a dozen at a time. Around the holidays — the traditional time for tamale eating — it gets even busier. In fact, the shop produces an average of 18,000 scratch-made tamales every day. 3561 Tejon St.
Parisi
While Parisi doesn’t have as long of tenure as some of the old-school restaurants on this list, it has been around for 26 years, which is considerable taking into account how much Tennyson Street has changed over that time. Inspired by Florence, Parisi opened in 1998 as a small market and deli with imported Italian goods. Today, the counter-serve restaurant is the place to go for pizza, salads, pastas, and a scoop of gelato. 4401 Tennyson St.
New-school restaurants
A variety of dishes at The Wolf’s Tailor in Denver’s Sunnyside neighborhood. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
The Wolf’s Tailor
Much sets The Wolf’s Tailor, and its tasting menus, apart, from its ambitious zero-waste mission to milling heritage grains, and experimenting with fermentation. The restaurant, which draws inspiration from around the world, opened in 2018, and earned a Michelin star in 2023 and 2024, plus a green star, which recognizes leaders in sustainability.
Diners enter through the backyard garden and see chefs firing dishes in the kitchen before checking in with the host — something “that initially was happening on accident, but that we kept because it gives guests a sense of place,” said Chef Kelly Whittaker, who operates ID Est hospitality group, which owns The Wolf’s Tailor with his wife Erika. 4058 Tejon St.
Kiké’s Red Tacos
Kiké’s Red Tacos got its start as a food truck, serving juicy birria tacos just as eaters on TikTok were fueling a lot of interest in cheesy and photogenic griddled tacos dripping in consome. To be able to reach more fans — and help ease long lines — the family-run business opened up a brick-and-mortar shop where birria ramen is on the menu, too. 1200 W. 38th Ave.
Odie B’s
Owner Cliff Blauvelt grew up in Sunnyside and chose the neighborhood to open his “rowdy little sandwich shop,” which serves some of tastiest breakfast burritos in town, along with brunch, stellar burgers and lunchtime sandwiches, like the Dirty Denver (green chile-braised short rib, cheese curds, beefy mayo, and salt and vinegar crispy onions on a hoagie), which entice fans to wait in line. Pair a breakfast sammy (there’s plenty of plant-based options, too) with a green chile Bloody Mary. 2651 W. 38th Ave.
The Cuban sandwich from Blackbelly Market in Denver (Photo by Lily O’Neill — The Denver Post)
Blackbelly Market
Blackbelly Market made its Denver debut last spring, expanding beyond its Boulder location, which took home a Michelin green star in 2023 and 2024 and earned a spot on the guide’s recommended restaurant list. Michelin also named Butcher Kelly Kawachi the 2023 Culinary Professional Award Winner. Pop into the Tennyson Street shop for a Cubano or banh mi. 4324 W. 41st Ave.
Tocabe
Tocabe opened in 2008 as Denver’s only restaurant featuring entirely Native American cuisine, like fry bread tacos and bison ribs. The founders also launched an online marketplace in 2021 to showcase more indigenous companies. 3536 W. 44th Ave.
Alma Fonda Fina
At the newly minted Michelin-star restaurant Alma Fonda Fina, owner Johnny Curiel is among a group of elite chefs who are helping lead Denver’s Mexican fine dining revolution. Curiel’s menu is influenced by the family recipes he brought with him from Guadalajara, like the frijoles puercos, a menu staple that riffs on one of his mom’s recipes; it includes refried beans, chorizo, salsa and queso that you can mop up with sourdough tortillas. The avocado margarita gets our vote as the star of the chef-driven cocktail menu. 2556 15th St.
Ash’Kara’s hummus and htipiti (Photo by Lily O’Neill, The Denver Post)
Ash’Kara
Located in the building that was Rosa Linda’s Mexican Cafe for 30 years, Ash’Kara has quickly become its own kind of neighborhood favorite, offering cuisine from Israel, the Mediterranean and North Africa. That means anything from falafel and lamb kofte to tagine and carrot kibbeh. The bright space was also recommended in the 2023 and 2024 Michelin guides. 2005 W. 33rd Ave.