From Scratch
Popular food truck begets Heirloom Bar & Grill; Chuck Norris wants you; Chile Colorado reviewed + bites, bits, events and more food & drink news
“This has been my dream since I was 11 years old,” says Jillian Lovelace, co-owner and GM of month-old Heirloom Bar and Grill. “I’ve been obsessed with culinary arts my whole life. I was thinking of going to culinary school, but my mom talked me out of it… so I ended up marrying into it.”
To be clear, Lovelace’s dream was a brick-and-mortar restaurant, because she and her husband Bryan, Heirloom’s exec chef, have already been running Scratch Mobile Kitchen since June, 2018. (And before you have to ask: yes, it will stay on the road seasonally, mostly booking spring and summer events.)
The couple met in 2014 when Jillian’s best friend was bartending at Oscar’s and Bryan was cooking there. She stayed in corporate America for a bit while he was already mid career as a line cook/chef. His 30-plus years in kitchens includes corporate eateries like Outback, Houlihan's, Applebee’s and Hops Grill & Brewery (once located near The Citadel) but also many local spots such as Wade’s Cafe, the original Olive Branch (on Boulder Street) and Southside Johnny’s. He was also sous chef at The Briarhurst for a couple years before moving to the Great Wolf Lodge for an equal stint.
Then came Scratch. “With the food truck we always had ideas of what we wanted to do, but we were constrained” says Jillian. “Bryan’s ribeye with blackberry bordelaise [now on the entrée menu] is something we’ve been talking about for years. We have a stack of ideas. Now, to be able to bring them to fruition, is so exciting… We can stretch our culinary wings. We want people to come and be surprised by something — more than you’d expect from any old bar and grill.”
Heirloom’s menu does include Scratch’s flagship items like the three-cheese grilled cheese with jalapeño-raspberry jam (Jillian’s touch) and a slow-cooked confit pork belly sandwich with blueberry bbq sauce. I enjoyed them both in 2018 and relish a revisit of the savory-sweet pork belly (on a Harvest Moon) brioche bun during my visit this week. But Bryan has concocted new apps, salads, sides, kids items, entrées and specials (such as duck wings in orange sauce coming soon). “Everything’s from scratch,” insists Jillian. “We even batter onion rings to order.”
I miss trying those, but I can give a ‘Bama boy nod of approval to Bryan’s well-executed fried green tomatoes served with house zesty ranch dip and pea shoot and mixed green salad with lemon vinaigrette.
I’m also legitimately impressed by his fish and chips rendition: Atlantic cod battered in FH Beerworks’ Sticky Paws honey wheat off draft. The batter’s airy, flaky and audibly crunchy, and doesn’t slink off the fish after the first bite like many do. I quiz Bryan on his method with the critical corn starch element and he says he recently studied up on recipes to adapt his own, which includes faint touches of cayenne and Old Bay Seasoning. The fries are the crispy, thick commercial variety (fully serviceable) and a side salad of kale and raw red onion dressed in slaw dressing adds a fresh, sharp acidity for counterpoint in addition to provided packets of malt vinegar.
While wines and bottled beers are available as well as FH Beerworks’ Good Day IPA on tap (with 22-ounce pours for $8.50 and more craft tap brews coming soon), I opt for one of the handful of designed craft cocktails: The Spiced Blackberry Bramble is made with blackberry syrup, British Columbia-based Empress Indigo Gin (purple from butterfly pea flower) and Longmont-based Grove Street Chai Liqueur. It’s a nice mix of aromatic spices and botanicals with a modestly sweet finish. (Former Axe and the Oak Distillery manager Aaron Brown joined Heirloom, and serves me.)
Catch Tuesday-Friday happy hours from 3-6 p.m. with half-off apps and $2 off draft beers and domestic bottles. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Sunday.
Make our collaboration chili this month
The January Schnip’s Pick recipe for Roasted Green Chili Con Carne comes to us as always from Gather Food Studio. It features ground beef from Side Dish sponsor Ranch Foods Direct as well as Winter Warlock Oatmeal Stout from this month’s special guest Bristol Brewing Company. Check out the above video where RFD Chef Nate Watts walks you through every step of prepping the recipe, offering his own technique tips. Pick up your key ingredients, including Gather’s custom-blend chili powder, at RFD’s retail markets and support your favorite local liquor store with a Winter Warlock purchase. Side Dish is grateful for the support of all these businesses.
Chuck Norris wants you (to take your vitamins)
Remember Chuck Norris jokes?
Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits. … When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris. … If Chuck Norris was on The Titanic the iceberg would have dodged the ship. … There are no streets named after Chuck Norris because no one would ever cross Chuck Norris. …
And people are still writing new ones!
Chuck Norris was exposed to Covid-19. Covid-19 had to go into quarantine for a month. …
OK but what the hell does this have to do with food and drink? I’m getting to that. The answer is nothing directly, but it if you consider health supplements in the realm of food (which I can make an argument for) then you’ll understand why I said yes to samples of some Roundhouse Provisions products from a PR firm. (They had me at “Chuck Norris” if I’m honest.)
For the past few weeks I’ve been waking up to a Morning Kick and taking a Gut Strike around breakfast and executing a Three Hit Combo after lunch sometime. If you’re picking up on all the macho, aggressive nomenclature then gold star for you — what else were you expecting from the man who supposedly can gargle peanut butter? (That’s another Chuck Norris joke, FYI.)
Have I started knocking out bad guys in public or assaulting randos at bars? No! Don’t be ridiculous — that’s not what these products are about. In all seriousness — well, as much as I can muster here — Norris reportedly launched Roundhouse Provisions in 2022 after seeing Texans struggle through the 2021 Texas power crisis brought on by severe winter weather. The company also sells emergency food.
Anyway, by way of a mini review, I’ve always found it near impossible to directly quantify any one supplement’s impact on my day-to-day health. Nothing in my routine is set up for an ideal scientific control to test a product, and I already take supplements like fish oil, B-, C- and D-vitamins, some CBD, etc. I think of all of it like an insurance policy to ensure I’m getting some foundational nutrition to make up for any deficiencies in a day’s diet (should I be out reviewing and eating less healthy or just missing those dark leafy greens I always try to shoehorn into every meal).
So I can’t say I’ve noticed anything particular about the Gut Strike and Three Hit Combo pills, although in lightly researching their respective ingredients I can only hope the items that supposedly help turn fat into fuel have been helping me sustain more energy on the wall at CityROCK. I’ve been slowly leveling up in my climbing lately. But I can say I’ve enjoyed waking up with the Morning Kick and utilizing it to quickly rehydrate after sleep and front-load with a palatable (actually tasty) strawberry lemonade-flavored superfood greens blend that includes ashwagandha, collagen and probiotics. I feel like it helps start me out with decent energy and prolongs needing solid food for another hour or two. Once I notice the dip and hunger setting in, I’ll prep a meal and a late-morning coffee so it’s not the caffeine I’m relying on for the kick in the pants right out of bed. (Supposedly that’s the best way to do coffee anyway.)
Conclusion: Celebrities want to sell us all types of things, so maintaining a skeptical approach to the marketplace is just common sense, especially in the era of ads following us around all over our social media pages. Would Chuck Norris want to paste his face and brand onto crap products to make a buck and risk his tough-guy image? Probably not. He’s doing fine on bucks. After all, this is the guy who knows Victoria’s Secret … the guy who can divide by zero … who can slam a revolving door …
Hand of enchantment
Free subscribers may now read in-full my review of Chile Colorado, originally published in early December. Here’s an excerpt (to convince you to click above):
“ … [Chef/Owner Daniel] Moreno’s carne adovada deserves attention. Large, chewy pork hunks cling together in a pasty red chile sauce… As with wine or whiskey, I feel like the red chile flavors unfold the longer they linger on my tastebuds, striking early floral notes and fading to the desert-evoking, dusty earthiness as they commingle with a subtle, smoldering spiciness…”
Bites and bits
• File this one into the “Amusing Excerpts from The 411 For the 719 Facebook Group” category: Over the past weekend someone posted grease-stained receipts to show how the Sonic Drive-In location at 6065 Constitution Ave. was apparently raising the price of a total bill with a military discount applied. One commenter, claiming to be a GM at a different Sonic location, confirmed “For some reason our military discount button does raise the price so we have to put in a % discount over the whole order not use that specific button.” But, being proactive, she added “I will definitely reach out to the gm of that store to make her aware she needs to coach her staff on this!” This appeared to quell some negative comments, and the original poster gave some grace, saying “thank you for the clarification one of my kids was very upset beings I'm a disabled combat Vet and she is like this is how we treat our soldiers? it actually brought good family conversations of politics and expectations and the reality of life and how shit happens .. we even made a hashtag #NoKarens lmao one of my kids wanted to be a Karen lmao.” Still, other commenters analyzed the receipt to point out a combo discount that seemed to negate the military one. We got a good laugh out of someone — apparently a subject matter expert — saying: “That sonic is second worse in town besides the one near the mall. They always fuck my order up.”
• Torchy’s Tacos will open its second C. Springs location on Jan. 24 at 3015 New Center Point, #150. The first location opened in late 2021 off Interquest Parkway.
• The Coffee Exchange just released new menus in tandem with its five-year birthday. They’re running specials all week, including a Chilean Lomito Sandwich (“Marinated and slow braised pork loin sliced thin piled on a brioche roll and loaded with tomato, avocado and mayo topped with red onion”) and a $5 Pastelito and Cafecito Combo (with a choice of beef or guava-and-cheese pastry plus coffee options).
• As covered in our inaugural tap&table episode, Focus on the Beer just released its reader-voted list of 2023 Beer/Brewery Awards. Congrats to all the winners, including multi-category victors Urban Animal and Goat Patch Brewing. Speaking of Goat Patch, they’re releasing their coveted, cult-favorite Pappy Legba Imperial Cherry Saison, aged on Axe and the Oak rye barrels, at 5 p.m., Friday, Jan. 19. On that same day, voting begins to name the new beer collaboration between Goat Patch and Colorado College. Focus’ Ryan Hannigan hoped it wouldn’t “become some sort of ‘Beery McBeerface’ debacle.” It looks like we’re safe from that, because the only three options available are “Block Break Blonde Ale” “RoCCy’s Blonde Ale” and “Tiger Tail Blonde Ale.” Which misses the opportunity to play with something like Hannigan’s headline “Tigers and Goats” which would show equal weighting to both entities. Even something as easy/fun as Tiger-Goat Blonde? (Imagine the hybrid animal label-art potential.) Can we get a fourth choice, ya’ll? (I mean, shucks, what do we know? The local beer and food reporters, and me with a creative writing degree from the college?)
More Dry January drinks
I’ve been observing a mostly Dry January because my food/drink work always gets in the way of strict diets. That said, I haven’t judged myself over a couple drinks in the past few weeks and I’ve made an effort to seek out some fun alcohol-free options.
One is Denver-based Grüvi’s mocha nitro stout. The company’s Golden Lager won for Best Non-Alcohol Beer at the 2022 World Beer Cup, by way of demonstrating they know how to brew the good goods. This darker brew indeed delivers the promised coffee and chocolate flavors with the expectedly creamy texture of a nitro beer — they claim to be the first to market with an N/A nitro. After the beer cools a bit, I also pick up some pleasant, faint tobacco notes. If you want to achieve the cool latte effect in your glass, follow the instructions to shake well and “pour aggressively.” You’ve gotta override the thought that you’re gonna spray open the can and overflow the glass as you would with a regular carbonated brew. Trust me, it’ll work out.
Next up, I’m excited to share (a little early) that New York-based company Curious Elixirs came in as a product sponsor on our upcoming Episode 2 of tap&table (set to release mid next week). When you get to listen to and view the episode, you’ll see us tasting through three flagship products that Curious sent us. One of the brand’s mottos is “booze-free craft cocktails infused with adaptogens to help you unwind.” The drinks contain organic juices, herbs, botanicals and spices for healthful properties. I haven’t tried all the flavors available online (there’s a monthly variety pack option), but of these three we sampled, my quick notes are: Go for the #6 if you’re a piña colada fan, but expect a twist with the (stress-reducing) lemon balm flavor and nutmeg spike. The #2 is made for Margarita people and carries a lovely bite from ginger, jalapeño and ancho and red chiles, plus it finishes with an interesting smoked sea salt salinity laced with star anise. My favorite of the batch though is #7, a sugar-free spin on a classic French 75, made with chardonnay grape, lemon juice, jasmine green tea, juniper, gentian, lavender and elderflower. Just in that description you can probably imagine the botanical bomb and lovely, complex floral tones to the drink.
Events
• Jan. 20: Luau Party at Pikes Peak Brewing.
• Jan. 22: [Schnip’s Pick] Bar Battle Royale at Tipperary Cocktail Parlor. 6 p.m.; free. The Archives vs. District Elleven vs. 503W vs. Tipperary in our finalists round. Free cocktail samples; special food menu, *mocktails available*. Come spectate four of our city's most talented bartenders facing off in a friendly cocktail competition. Challenge spirits provided by Southern Glazer's. I’ll be co-judging/co-presenting. Join us!
• Jan. 23: Passport to Veneto Wine Dinner at Pizzeria Rustica, benefitting CASA.
• Jan. 24: The Broadmoor’s Meet the Maker whiskey series continues with Breckenridge Distillery at The Grille.
• Jan 26-27: Hispanic Top Chef Wine Dinner at Eleven18.
• Jan. 27: Winter Beer Fest at Pueblo’s Fuel & Iron Food Hall. (Go early for the fake beard and plaid scarf giveaway and get ready to throw axes. Man this event has it all.)
Parting shot(s)
This just in: I’ve got swag!
If you’d like to support Side Dish by being a beautiful, stylish walking billboard for my biz, then buy a T-shirt! As with mullet haircuts, these shirts are business in the front and party in the back. Now you can technically attend a black-tie affair in a T-shirt. The shirts are high quality, soft, stretchy, and great for hugging, chopping wood, bartending, sport climbing, and so many more activities. Just don’t commit crimes in them because that’s usually bad press for businesses; oh, and morally wrong.
Thanks to my awesome area printer Local Design Shop (shout-out Ryan Alejo!) you can choose from an array of shirt colors (with various black or white tie combos) and there’s a women’s T-shirt style, as well as a hoodie.
If you’re ordering three or more (man you must love me then, thanks!) contact me directly for a local pickup option that saves shipping. And through Jan. 25 only as a launch special, you can use the discount code LOCAL to remove shipping; just know this will require coordinating pickup with me, ideally at a future Thursday Sip with Schnip for convenience. I’m currently carrying a limited inventory of black and white men’s (unisex) shirts in medium and large sizes — so again come see me at one of my upcoming events I’ll announce or contact me directly for one of those.
While I’m at it, I do also have stickers. The holographic rendition is free to paid subscribers or $1 for anyone else. The black-and-white stickers are free to my free subscribers or two-for-$1 otherwise. Thanks to existing sticker holders, I’ve now met strangers who’ve said “I’ve seen your face around town.” (Mission accomplished.)
Foil stickers? Heckin!