Crown Burgers

It struck me the other day that there was a major omission in my investigation of Denver dives - the greasy burger joint.  What list of dives can call itself complete without the inclusion of a fast food hamburger stop?  The hamburger is a widely interpreted dish, from the 99 cent variety, to the 15 dollar posh version with fancy meat all sorts of shiny gear on top, even to those that are starting to pop up on the menus at Mexican restaurants.  This makes it a perfect engine for a dive, as many of the interpretations find themselves on the soggy buns end of the stick.  In an attempt to fill this gap in my research, and fill my belly, I made a beeline to Crown Burgers for lunch. 


Crown Burgers has the look of a dive down pat, with the dated exterior, the antique drive thru sign (including duct tape!), and the absurd specials plastered on the majority of the window space, screaming at you to buy a gyro sandwich for $4.19.  I assumed that when digging into a basket at the Crown Burger your head ends end up in such a grease-and-meat induced fog that natural light is unnecessary.  Whatever the rationale, I was excited to get inside.

Crown Burgers is done up in classic fast-food joint decor: semi-greasy off colored laminate booths throughout, a counter to order at, and a hand-operated menu on the wall complete with worn-out pictures of the food.   Tacky menu pictures are a favorite of mine.  Unfortunately it seems that these days only the Chinese (with a few exceptions like the Crown, of course) continue to excel at making patrons uninterested in eating their food prior to ordering through the use of unappetizing pictures of their food.  The hallway to the restrooms was decorated with a stack of ceiling tiles that had apparently been forgotten about, as they were sorely needed in the front of the restaurant.  However, those stacked in the hallway were white, so perhaps they were being allowed to season in the back hallway to better match the greasy off-white tiles throughout the restaurant.

Crown Burgers is the home of the Royal Burger, otherwise known as the Royal Pastrami, otherwise known as the Pastrami Burger, a hamburger with pastrami on top (go figure).  There was also the Double Royal, but I shook off the notion, as it could possibly have temporarily paralyzed a small guy like myself.  The rest of the menu was a cornucopia of different heart-attack specials, (smothered chili-cheeseburger, et al) so I decided to stick with the house specialty and a 'Mixed', a combo order of fries and rings.  Arriving at my booth several minutes later was a good sized cheeseburger topped with lettuce, tomato and onion... and then a heaping pile of pastrami.  It was like two sandwiches for the price of one, score one for getting a good deal.  The lady taking my order at the counter, who I believe was Stella, one of the owners, had given me the option of foregoing the roughage, but I didn't want to be too much of a savage and declined her offer.

First the Mixed.  Delicious as any fried bit of mung, the interesting thing here was not the fried bits themselves, but the sauce that came with:  Creamy, yellowish in color, definitely special, the consistency of mayonnaise, but not exactly straight out of the jar.  There was something else going on but I could not put my finger on it, as it really had no appreciable flavor.  I decided it's sole purpose in life was a calorie booster, as if you needed one after the rest of the meal.  Crown doesn't bother charging you for their boost, though, like some of those juice places do.  More value!

I eyed the Royal like a quarterback dissecting a defense.  Biting into it was a challenge due to all the extra baggage, and I would not recommend attempting this without a large pile of napkins at the ready.  The burger itself was nothing special - not over cooked, not under cooked, marginal seasoning.  The toppings were OK, and the bun was actually not that jacked up with soggy bits.  The pastrami had the flavor, and turned my notion of a good burger a bit sideways.  I wouldn't call it pure genius, but I would call it damn tasty.  Made me feel like a man.

Crown Burgers was my first attempt at a dive burger joint and in the end hit all the marks.  I left the Crown happy, a couple pounds heavier after the Royal Burger and Mixed, but lighter overall having filled the hole in my resume.

Crown Burgers is located at 2192 S. Colorado Boulevard, and has a junk website at crownburgers.org (as if they are a non-profit or something).  Treat yourself to some special sauce.

An Especially Dirty Martini

I just had an interesting thought about the bacon-tini. The good folks at The Berk certainly did a good job filtering out the bacon from their infused vodka. Maybe as a special some night, they should offer the Extra Dirty Bacon-tini, one that still has little chunks of bacon floating around in it. A cocktail you can chew! Then maybe garnish it with a nice slice, fried up crispy. Delicious.

The Bacon-Tini

'Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal.' - Jules



The last couple of years I have noticed an abundance of praise and love being expressed for pigs. Celebrity chefs like Anthony Bourdain gush about its deliciousness. Great book titles like The 2007 Report on Pork Rind Pellets and Pork Cracklings Made in Slaughtering Plants: World Market Segmentation by City (available on Amazon.com for a mere $795) or Pig Perfect: Encounters With Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways to Cook Them have hit the shelves in bunches. With that kind of coverage, what more could I tell you about pork that has not already been written or said? Maybe this: Hog makes a tasty beverage.

The Berkshire, a Stapleton restaurant that could be better described as a pig pleasure palace, offers a variety of martini called the bacon-tini. Normally The Berk wouldn't warrant mention in a blog about dives, but there was something about a cocktail-meat combo that got my attention. I like a martini now and again, and I enjoy a breakfast with hog, so why not? The bartender laid out the details for me: It's a dirty vodka martini with a couple olives. Key is the Svedka vodka that has been 'infused' with Daily's premium bacon, fancy speak for throwing some bacon in your vodka and letting it sit around for a couple days. I liken it to infusing the milk in your cereal bowl with cocoa crispies. Same principal. You can do this at home.

My Bacon-tini arrives and I promptly spill a quarter of it all over the bar. It takes a bit of restraint not to start sucking up martini off the bar, but I persevere. That's 2 bucks in a puddle! I further persevere and have a drink: it's got the warmth of a regular martini, but more depth and a fantastic peppery smokiness that could only come from the bacon. Pretty nice. The bacon really works. And I am not typically one for a dirty martini and the olive that comes with, but I even managed to choke that down.

Jules speaks many truths, and a pig may indeed be a filthy animal. However, perhaps the cocktail is the perfect hog delivery: If you drink enough bacon-tinis, who cares how filthy the pig was?

The Berkshire is located at 7352 E. 29th Avenue. The bacon-tini will burn a hole in your wallet at $8 a pop, but it's probably worth a go. 

The Zephyr Lounge

I've always liked the idea of time travel. Go back in time and right wrongs (like that time I lost the 5th grade city-wide spelling bee on the word 'detract'; I spelled 'detracked', what am I, a mind reader? That garbage is still under protest ) go find out who shot Kennedy, or maybe even jump ahead a couple years to see if Mr. A's is still the friendliest lounge in Denver, or if the Cubs ever win the pennant. Alas, time travel has been thus far in history relegated to the movies and television, despite all the hard work done by Mr. Einstein in laying the whole thing out for us with his Theory of Relativity. Think of The Theory of Relativity as Einstein saying, 'Look, time travel is possible, and here are some numbers and letters that prove it.' Nice tune, Al, but the common dude can't dance to it. Time travel is indeed possible - I experienced it for myself the other night at The Zephyr Lounge - and I'm going to tell you what color the velvet drapes are. The best part: You too can travel through time, if you are ok with only being able to go back to the year 1981. Here are five things you should know for your trip:

1. There are colored lights involved. You are bathed in blue light upon entering the vestibule at The Zephyr Lounge, your first sign that something is amiss. Passing through the vestibule, my intrepid party and I felt a strong pull, one that was telling us to belly up to the bar. I could have sworn there was a hint of High Karate in the air, though that could have been Jeff's deo. We followed our noses to the bar, probably about 10 seats long, and immediately swung around to survey the landscape. The patrons all appeared to be fairly worn out and easily pushing 50. Which brings me to the second thing you should know,

2. The people stuck in 1981 are old. Several of the hairstyles could very well have been found at a backyard barbecue at Archie Bunker's house. Glasses were big (is that in style again? I could be out of the loop) Five or six members of a band were jammed together at one end of the bar, and had people dancing in the aisles. Literally, as there really wasn't enough room for much of a dance floor. The gray hairs and odd floral-print shirts of the band, not to mention the caliber of music, indicated that this was a weekend hobby for most of the members. Regardless of the fact that the crowd loved the mix of oldies garbage,

3. The music sucks. Maybe we were there on a bad night, as I don't want to anger any of the Kim Carnes or Eddie Rabbitt fans out there, but my God. When you are packing for 1981, make sure you throw some ear plugs in with a change of underwears, just in case. The only thing I loved about the band was the fact that there were so many members (and the barroom was so small) that they blocked the entrance to the bathrooms, and at several points right in the middle of a song, some guy straight off of That's Incredible! would be fighting his way through the band trying to get to the john. And speaking of God, he was sitting opposite the band in his own booth. That brings me to item number 4,

4. You'll find God at The Zephyr. Not necessarily find him, but he'll be there... a fancy statue and some God related decor, wall hangings and such, anyways. I found the God corner to be a nice touch - something slightly disturbing while being oddly comforting at the same time. Which brings me to the final thing you should know,

5. The hospitality is fantastic. The Zephyr did a fine job of making those of us from not around 1981 feel comfortable. For starters, to save confusion, every bottle, can, and decanter in the place had a price tag on it, very clearly illustrating the cost of getting hammered in 1981. Quite useful! Worth mentioning as a sidebar is that one of the offerings that I enjoyed was Hamms in a can. It was a good accompaniment to time travel, as it tasted like it was from the 80's. More amenities: Need a smoke? Despite smokers probably being relegated to the newly refurbished (for 1981, this probably means that they just laid down some green Astroturf that isn't pock marked with cigarette burns) patio area, for all the puffers out there The Zephyr provides an old-school smokes dispenser with a sign announcing 'Yes it works!'. And finally, if you have one too many well-labeled beverages and find yourself in need of a place to crash, The Zephyr can help you out with that as well. That's right, head outside past the newly refurbished patio and you'll find yourself at The Zephyr's very own motor lodge. What more could a guy ask for? Fantasy suites. You'll have to see it to believe it.

In the end, the secret to time travel wasn't a fancy contraption, a worm hole, Einstein’s letters and numbers, or driving 88 miles-per-hour (though that would certainly get you there quicker, probably even faster if you did it in a late model Camaro), it just took a short trip down Colfax and knowing which street corner to stop at.

The Zephyr Lounge is located at 11940 E. Colfax in Aurora. If you see the blue lights and purple velvet drapes, you’ll know you’re there.

Dive-Off Part 2: The Breakfast Queen

I had butterflies of anticipation. Was The Breakfast Queen feeling the same? Was The Queen ready to fight back? The sign on the door told me no: it sweetly asked its patrons to have patience while waiting for a table, as The Breakfast Queen is a small family joint and everyone deserves their turn, and why don't you hold hands and sing Kumbaya while you wait. Ok, I made that last part up, but you get the gist. Those aren't exactly fightin' words. But as I took The Queen in, I started to get an inkling that the first ever dive-off wasn't going to be a TKO to the Breakfast King in round 1. Gumball machine in the hallway where we waited for a table, specifically put there to taunt my son? Check. Throng of local yokel patrons, from the young and surly to the old and innocuous? Check. Crappy wood paneling? Check, though much was covered up by the wall of mirrors that I assume were utilized to lessen the feeling of claustrophobia brought on by The Queen's lack of elbow room (the total table count = 15). Don't trust your patrons enough to accept credit cards? Blow to The Breakfast King's kidneys. Motley Crue on the radio? Dr. Feelgood indeed.

This was shaping up as a pretty good battle, but there one problem that became apparent by the end of the meal: It's hard to call The Breakfast Queen a dive. The food is nice - my breakfast burrito was certainly better than the bomb I got at The King (not to mention the burrito). The service is fantastic. Our waitress hugged some of the regulars as they left, and even succeeded in making us, a party of two first timers and one unruly kid, feel like we were frequent diners. It's not overly shabby - heck, even the carpet is presentable. There is really nothing to raise an eyebrow at, other than perhaps the array of posters of the Greek Isles that line the back hallway, making you think for a moment that you were walking into an office of the Greek Board of Tourism. If I didn't know any better, I was back home in Iowa at the local small town diner, where everyone knows everyone else and you keep coming back for the good company as much as you do for the food. In the end it was a tough call, but the first ever dive-off has to go to The Breakfast King by virtue of DQ. While I am not thrilled in ending a dive-off this way, I have no regrets about spending part of my morning at The Breakfast Queen. It's a fine breakfast option, dive or not.

The Breakfast Queen #2 (no relation to Breakfast Queen #1) sits unassumingly at 3454 South Broadway in Englewood.