A new restaurant in Broomfield seeks to bring people together under one of the world’s great uniting causes: the love of potatoes.
Whether they’re boiled, mashed or stuck in a stew, potatoes are used in regional dishes from around the world — and The Loco Potato’s Larry Lee is aware of the tuber’s global nature.
“Potatoes are in so many cuisines, French, German, Indian, Japanese, you name it,” Lee said, adding that when he and his aunt, Kitty Pan, envisioned the restaurant they were thinking about “how in the world can we just kind of marry all those together and then put it in one concept.”
The concept they decided on is a menu full of loaded baked potatoes. The Loco Potato opened in August, and sold over 300 potatoes within hours on each of its opening days, Lee said.
“I’m Chinese, and so is my aunt, so we grew up eating potatoes when we were kids,” Lee said. “Then as we get older our palate gets a little bit more complex, so we wanted to expand the potato.”
Among the menu items, Lee said, the Green Piggie has been a top seller — a baked potato smothered in butter, melted cheese and green chile sauce topped with Loco Potato’s 11-hour pulled pork, sour cream and cilantro. At the restaurantap official opening day, Lee said, it sold about 360 potatoes, and over 140 of those were Green Piggies.
Also on the menu is a breakfast potato including egg and bacon, a vegetable-focused potato topped with fajita veggies and guacamole, and a potato topped with ingredients out of a seafood boil. If none of the signature dishes strike a customer’s fancy, The Loco Potato offers the creation of a custom potato with any of the restaurantap offerings.
The Loco Potato, near Sheridan Boulevard and 120th Avenue, held an initial test kitchen opening Aug. 14, before the official opening, that was intended for a smaller audience, but a video posted by Pan’s daughter went viral on social media and brought in a crowd of over 200, Lee said.
The video is “just super authentic, there’s no cuts or whatever, and I think the audience kind of appreciated that in today’s heavily edited world,” Lee said. “Without the edits, without the professional mic, I think the audience (felt it) resonate a lot better and feel like they can connect with us a lot more.”
“I just wanted to create something that everybody just loves and they can bond together through food,” Lee said. “I think potato is one of those things that is very renowned worldwide — everybody loves potato, so I really want to unite everybody under one roof.”
