Since you can never know too much about your chosen profession, I’m a member of a lot of different meetups and other professional groups. Yesterday, the Denver Bloggers Club met for a presentation and discussion about SEO and blogging at the Westminster Rusty Bucket Restaurant & Tavern. Focused on classic American “comfort food”, we had the great opportunity to try everything on the menu. Yes, the approximately 15 of us had plate after plate after plate of food show up, far more than even the group of us could consume.
I was impressed. The restaurant is definitely focused on contemporary comfort food, as it’s known, with fish and chips, chicken and waffles, deep fried pickles, breakfast burritos and buffalo chicken sandwiches. As general manager Sam Jacobson explained to us with much enthusiasm, everything’s made from scratch, from pizza crusts to burritos, and they have surprisingly fresh seafood (remember, Colorado’s a landlocked state!) because the company also owns Ocean Prime, a top downtown seafood eatery.
It’s all quite delicious looking too. By the time the Chicken and Waffles got to me it’d been rather sampled a bit, but still, doesn’t it look tasty?
Who came up with the idea of fried chicken on waffles anyway? Is it a breakfast? Brunch? Dinner? I think it’s one of the stranger food mashups on the contemporary culinary scene and it definitely takes me back to my last visit to Texas, where food trucks served up quite exotic combinations of waffles and, well, what most folk would unquestionably consider to be non-waffle stuff. 🙂
Of everything on the menu that I tried, however, my favorite was the evocatively named Yogurt Spill. It’s plain Greek yogurt topped with fresh fruit and granola, then drizzled with honey:
Running a very close second were both the Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and the Fish ‘n Chips, both of which were quite good and deep fried in a nice, hot oil so they didn’t end up oily. And fries. I like french fries, I do.
Surprisingly, there were only two dessert options on the menu, Sticky Bun Bread Pudding and Triple Chocolate Cake. My table ended up with the latter, and it’s a brownie (they claim it’s chocolate cake, tho) + ice cream + fudge sauce. I mean, how can you go wrong with that combo?
All quite delicious and worth checking out if you’re in the NE Westminster area: Rusty Bucket Restaurant and Tavern is in the Orchard Town Center shopping area off 144th & I-25.
But it’s not all just food. The company really sees itself as a member of the community and one thing that they do which might get your kids enthused is the “Bucketeer Bookworms” program: Every five books your child reads they get a free kid’s meal. If you have a voracious reader — or they have to read a lot for school — this can save you a few bucks and make them feel like a superhero both. A win:win.
There are a zillion food choices in the greater Denver metro area, but if I find myself in the area, Rusty Bucket’s definitely now on my short list of places to meet friends or take the family. Oh, and they actually serve some food in buckets too, something I was quite curious about!
Disclaimer: Rusty Bucket Restaurant and Tavern sponsored our visit and supplied us all with a menu’s worth of food without charge.
What an assortment of treats The Rusty Bucket offered us! I had the same thought you did about chicken and waffles, but then my husband and I watched Mildred Pierce last night, and she’s opening a chicken and waffles restaurant. In 1931. Who knew!
Great to see you 🙂
As you know, I was pretty excited about the gluten-free options available here. Great post – it’s on my shortlist to visit the next time I’m in the area. I’m excited for the one to open off I25 and Lincoln that Sam mentioned.