It’s been said that when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore. But how much more amore can downtown Denver take?
I told you last week about Wazee Wood-Fired Pizza from New York chef Charlie Palmer, who has it under construction in the former bar side of the building at 1631 Wazee St.
Add to that two other players in the upscale pizza game — Lucky Pizza in the Wazee and 16th Street Mall corner of the former Dixons space, and Parkway Pizza and Bar inside the former Braun’s building, across from the Pepsi Center. Parkway’s owner, Aramark Sports and Entertainment Service, the Pepsi Center concessionaire, recently applied for a liquor license.
And on top of the three newbies, we’ve already got Marco’s Coal-Fired Pizza, Osteria Marco, Mellow Mushroom, Old Chicago, Two-Fisted Mario’s and Wazee Supper Club all competing for a slice of the customer pie.
“I don’t think there’s a dearth of pizza in downtown,” said Denver restaurant consultant John Imbergamo. “It’s not like there’s a hole in the market like there would be for Steuben’s (comfort) food or barbecue.”
One factor that may be contributing to the pizza proliferation is that the product is relatively inexpensive to produce.
“The most expensive part of a pizza usually is the cheese,” Imbergamo said. “Protein is a condiment on pizza. It’s not like opening a steak house where food cost is high and you’re paying exorbitant prices for prime beef.”
Imbergamo says that Denver has gone through spurts of restaurants with similar concepts opening at roughly the same time.
“We see little runs like this every once in a while with two or three steak houses, upscale hamburger restaurants and noodle-ish places opening in a row,” he said. “I don’t think it’s anybody’s major plan. I just think that all this came up kind of organically by people thinking what can we do here. The question is whether there’s enough demand for pizza to fill all those seats.”
Highs and lows.
Denver hit some highs and lows in the results of Travel + Leisure magazine readers’ 2011 rankings of America’s favorite cities survey.
Denver was rated No. 1 in the microbrew beer, athletic/active and pet-friendly vacation categories.
The Mile High City also earned high marks for public parks and outdoor access (No. 2) and as a base for day trips (No. 4).
Denver got dinged in the cultural getaway (No. 26), architecture/cool buildings (No. 25) and diverse (No. 24) categories.
More readers’ ratings.
Conde Nast Traveler magazine’s just-released 2011 Readers’ Choice Awards includes three Denver hotels: The Oxford Hotel, the JW Marriott Denver Cherry Creek and The Curtis — a Doubletree by Hilton. The St. Julien Hotel & Spa in Boulder also made the list.
The three Denver hotels are all owned or managed by Sage Hospitality, a Denver-based hotel company headed by founder and city booster Walter Isenberg.
Eavesdropping.
A co-worker commenting on picture of a colleague’s spouse: “Your husband is quite good-looking.”
“Oh, he’s only good-looking in pictures.”
Penny Parker’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Call her at 303-954-5224 or e-mail pparker@denverpost.com.
