Three weeks. That’s all it took for Denverites Chris Newell, 25, and his girlfriend Jennifer Coolbrith, 27, to turn an idea into a business, complete with a commercial kitchen, city licenses, and a website.
The two open (dirtycookie.co, 303-586-1945) a baked-to-order cookies, milk and ice cream delivery service for Denver, on Friday. The service’s hours? Eight in the evening until 3:30 a.m. — in other words, prime time for people with the munchies.
“That was considered,” said Newell. “The munchies and the drunchies.”
Four of the recipes are from Coolbrith’s family: sugar cookies with M&Ms, chocolate chip, double chocolate fudge, and ginger doodle. The other four recipes are new. The milk comes from , and the ice cream from — both Front Range companies.
The business came about after a recent late-night brainstorm. Newell wanted Coolbrith’s cookies. She wasn’t in the mood for a cookie-baking session. She said, “Google it.” He found only one company that delivered fresh cookies, and when they arrived Newell said they weren’t up to snuff. So they decided to launch their own business.
For now, the cookies will be available by delivery only, but the couple hopes to start getting them into coffee shops soon. And they also plan to open The Dirty Bean, a coffee shop and bakery in the .
Fresh cookies and milk at 3 a.m., delivered to the front door.
Dude.
Dirty Cookie sounds good, but I don’t think it’s ever going to be up for a . The esteemed New York nonprofit announced semi-finalists for the big awards last week, and Front Rangers are in the running. Here they are. Best chef, Southwest: Alex Seidel at , Max MacKissock at and Jennifer Jasinski at . Rising-star chef of the year: Jorel Pierce, . Outstanding wine program: . Outstanding restaurateur: . Outstanding bar program: .
Final nominees are announced in March, and winners will be announced in May. Let’s go!
Here’s another chef I’m pulling for: Justin Brunson, the cleaver-wielding, big-bearded guy behind , (1575 Central St., 303-561-3354,masterpiecedeli.com) a LoHi sandwich emporium. He just opened (3316 Tejon St., 720-420-0622, oldmajordenver.com) also in LoHi, a joint where the emphasis is trumpeted in the restaurant’s tagline: “seafood, swine and wine.”
Early reports are awfully good. I’m glad Brunson is emphasizing the vino. I’m a bit of a beer nut, but I think restaurants lately have been overemphasizing the fermented grains, to the detriment of the fermented grapes. It’s all about balance, people! And yes, beer does pair well with some cuisines. But I think the juice of the vine generally performs better magic with most food than suds.
Old Major must be occupying a lot of Brunson’s time, but it’s not the only new venture for the Iowa native. He also started (denverbaconcompany.com, denverbaconcompany@gmail.com). It makes dry-cured, peachwood smoked bacon. So now we have at least two companies in Denver run by Iowans making their own bacon, packaging it and selling it: Denver Bacon Co. and what has got to be its main competition, (tenderbelly.com, 303-305-4360).
Now that I have offended the Front Range’s many, many beer geeks, let me make amends. The Colorado Craft Beer Week runs from March 18-24. Breweries around the state are holding beery events. The kickoff happens at (1919 Blake St., 303-293-8338) on Monday, the 18th. The beer-lovers bar will have 80 Colorado beers on tap — that’s the highest concentration of Colorado beers on tap, ever. Head to cobeerweek.com, or call the Colorado Brewers Guild at 303-507-7664.
One more thing. It’s until March 8. The thing that caught my eye doesn’t involve a restaurant. At (1007 York St., 720-865-3585, botanicgardens.org) $52.80 gets you a cooking class for two, plus the food that gets prepared (they offer two classes, the first one Thursday night; call the Gardens for information). And, they’ll throw in an annual membership to the Gardens, which usually costs $65. Now that is a deal.
Cheers!
Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395, djbrown@denverpost.com or twitter.com/douglasjbrown
