2262 LARIMER STREET - The life and times of a Denver Dining Evolution

Why Snooze? 

Imagine going into the office at 3:00p in the afternoon.  That’s when your work day starts!  You work until midnight, 1:00a, maybe 4:00a.  The sunrise is the end of your day and the sunset marks lunchtime.  This has been my life for the past 15 years.  When the majority of the mass is off, that’s when I’m on.  My job is your leisure time. 

It has been the running joke for my friends during this time.  Don’t ask me for a dinner party on Friday or Saturday.  A Happy Hour social is not on my agendas.  I’ve been the best breakfast date you’ve ever met.  I’ve tried them all too.  At least twice.  I became obsessed with it. I’ve collected hundreds of menus, wrote countless reviews, and mentally stored away ideas.  Even when I traveled, which has been a lot, it was breakfast and lunch restaurants that I sought out.  Dinner was for snacking. 

At one  point in my career, I was basking in the thought of what direction my career should climb.  Corporate Food and Beverage provided excellent structure early in my career, but was not my long term interest.  I believe all operational managers at one point have thought about liquor and wine vending.  For me, I’ve always wanted my own restaurant.  And with the contacts and friendships I’ve developed over the years in the industry, I knew that my own restaurant was achievable.  I just wasn’t solid on the idea yet.

I remember having a breakfast meeting one Saturday morning at the crack of dawn, 10a.  I would set my alarm to hit Snooze 3 times every morning.  Every morning, I would hit the Snooze.  It was automatic.  And floating in and out of consciences between the 2^nd and 3^rd alarm, the answer was handed to me.  An A.M. Eatery.

Yet as I played in the clear blue seas of the Bay Islands in Honduras, escorting my fellow man through the corals and currents that lie in this blissful Caribe world, I hoped to pull something larger out of this.  And while my holistic pursuit aspires for global alteration, quite often I take away a solid chat here, a good tip there, or a grand food find.  Not too downplay the plethora of burgers and fries my diet consisted with in Roatan.  But I knew my largest culinary discovery would come from the (legal) plant of this region.  The great java bean.

Hanging up my fins and leaving my tarantula infested flat, I jumped on the bus and stared at poorly translated Steven Seagal films whilst devouring plantain chips and sucking down cola in a Ziploc baggy.  35 solid hours later I arrive in Guatemala City.  Here I'm to meet with the owners of a 100 year-old, family-owned coffee finca (farm en espanol), apparently interested in educating

Eduardo carries on the tradition of his family's 100 year-old coffee finca.

 said neophyte on the art of the bean.  Attired in the sole pair of pants brought, cheesy Dive Roatan sweatshirts, and flip flops, I stagger into my coffee contacts family home, a representative of the next great culinary evolution in Colorado.  I thought they were going to give me change.

Instead, I spend the next few hours delving into the life of Guatemala.  Then delving into the coffee bean itself, in which my progressively numbing questions brought outright shock to their faces.  It was as if I'd emerged from the wilderness and wanted to know what these annoying fork and spoon things were all about.  Yet they were amazing to me.  If I walk away with one family to represent the culture and virtues of Guatemala, I'd state we should all raise our youth there. 

Returning to my hostel at midnight, I suck down a few Gallos and write a dissertation to my family on coffee and all it's glory.  "Did you know there are 13 different types of Arabica, and then one Robusta, but Robusta sucks because it's grown like this, and here is there and yada yada."  Still, assuredly it's the greatest research paper I've ever conducted.

Rising the next day, I hustle back to my hosts house to begin a caffeinated indulgence to keep the education alive.  I think I became addicted, weaned off, addicted and once more all in a spell of my 15 cup day.  Jumping in the truck with Eduardo, we drive for an hour outside of G City to the Moyuta Volcano, home to this wonderful juice I'm gulping down and Eduardo's home town.  And here, I deem Eduardo mayor, as the town virtually throws a parade as our pick-up bounces about this San Francisco graded streets, though asphalt gives way to dirt.  I'm welcomed to his home, where my staggering Spanish allows me to compliment the coffee, gallo pinto, and wonderful home.  It stages as the town's funeral parlor as well.  Convenient really. 

Eduardo and I jump back in the truck to head to the plantation, where for the next few hours I see first hand where this magical bean is created.  It's stages, the varieties, the slope and soil of the land, the natural mill and dry bed, the natural means in which it's generated, the attention to environment and the care for it's continued prosperity.  And it's gorgeous.  I'm in the middle of a Guatemalan rainforest surrounded by coffee with the Pacific Ocean way off in the distance.  We machete are way through the land, pick native unidentifiable fruit, we fire weapons because, well, I'm not sure why, but there needs to be a first time for anything.  This is one of the moments that simply bring a smile for great fortune and experience.

Yes, I met with other growers.  I tasted countless cups of coffee.  I've read books from the origins to how Starbucks took over the world.  What I was able to discover was great coffee.  And further more, experience, friendship, and culture.  As with any great product, there should be a great story, a great message or memory sparked.  Here's hoping each sip of Snooze Blend, imported directly from the small finca in Guatemeala, will inspire a moment of adventure, determination, or simple tranquility.  Cheers.

A Bloody Mary is Born

There truly is no cocktail quite like the bloody mary.  We are talking about a socially acceptable, pre-noon alcoholic beverage.  Packed with vitamins and minerals to solidify your standing on this weeks' government pyramid.  The mark of many a good bartender goes as far as their bloody mary creation.  With so many potential ingredients and so much time, bartender relative, required to create, a solid bloody mary can be a bartender's work of art.  An excellent bloody mary can be a signature to a restaurant.  So when you walk into Snooze, expect a Snooze Bloody Mary to woe you akin to, say, the signature martini at the Red Square in Vegas.  With that, care to know where the bloody originated? 

When Russians were descending from their home country, Europe was introduced to a whole new beverage of drinking, Vodka.  They put it in everything.  And when American shipped over it’s first canned tomato juice, well, it made sense for the bartender to give it concoct a new beverage. 

Fernand Petiot, an ex pat who bartended at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris in the ‘20’s, is the famed inventor of the legendary Bloody Mary. 

The story goes that when he mixed the tomato juice and vodka,  a patron suggested that the drink be named the Bloody Mary, because it was reminiscent of the Bucket of Blood Club in Chicago, and a girl there named Mary.  Another account is that the drink is named after the lovely Bloody Mary herself, Queen Mary I, famous for her persecution of the Protestants.

Whatever the origins of the drink, it quickly became popular back in the US when Petiot began bartending at the St. Regis Hotel, and spiced it up for his classy New York clientele.

A dreary name that I’m not sure I ever want to know the real origin.  I know it’s a A.M. cocktail that goes great with hearty breakfasts, coffee, and hangovers. 

Bon Appetit…..

Snapshot of the Week      Feeding off the love for fine food and dance, siblings to the host experiment with potential Snooze baked goods in the off-site Snooze kitchen.