A Wild Week Comes To A Close
September 28, 2009
Finding ourselves back at I-70 after wandering through detours & construction in Golden.
What a whirlwind three days in Denver! It was the most challenging and perhaps most rewarding time of the entire Dine Out week for us; we came home yesterday, exhausted but content with our accomplishments.
Our goal was to make a purchase at every restaurant in Colorado participating in the Great American Dine Out. We didn’t make it. We got damn close, though, three kids in tow and hitting Denver restaurants right up to their 11:00 pm closing times on Saturday night. During our Dine Out Challenge, we were able to purchase from 17 of 25 participating restaurants in the state. If you read Matt’s recent post about celebrating failures to achieve success, you’ll know that although disappointed that we were unable to get to every establishment, we are embracing the lessons learned along the way and are excited for future opportunities to try again.
Of many excellent experiences, the following were standouts. We were able to purchase quite a bit of food from Buffalo Wild Wings, Bruegger’s Bagels, Mimi’s Cafe and Claim Jumper Restaurants which we then donated to the folks at the Denver Rescue Mission. It was an eye-opening experience for all of us but particularly for the kids, who have never known authentic need in their relatively privileged lives. We also met Libby and Brad Birky, founders of So All May Eat (SAME) Cafe, two people dedicated to the basic tenet that everyone, regardless of economic status, deserves the chance to eat healthy food while being treated with dignity. We are excited to be designing a new website for SAME!
Shaking hands with the sting rays at the Downtown Aquarium
Digging in at Joe's Crab Shack
There were many amazing moments from the past week, too many to mention each one individually. We are grateful for the opportunity to laugh a lot, meet many good and kind people, and help some kids get better access to nutritional food than they otherwise would. The photos included in this post represent some of my favorite memories from our trip.
Sincere thanks to each of you who supported our efforts and who contributed by dining out over the past week or donating directly to Share Our Strength.
Dine Out Challenge Day 4: Who’s Got the &$&%# Map?!?!?!
September 26, 2009
Thursday, the 4th day of our challenge, was the day we headed over the divide to spend a whirlwind 3 days in Denver trying to hit close to 20 restaurants… with 3 kids… and a giant Surbuban… and two adults who apparently were both born without any sense of direction.
The plan was simple: get on I-70, make it over the passes, head a bit north of Denver to Broomfield, quickly visit, purchase, and distribute food from five of our targets, and head South into the city to check into our hotel. Simple, no?
Not so much. I’m not sure how many historic misadventures have begun with the words “Let’s take a shortcut”, but methinks it numbers more than three. I won’t divulge who was driving and who was navigating, but I will say we ended up in Broomfield about an hour later than we had hoped… after getting stuck behind a Casino bus on a two lane road… and after taking a less-than-diligently marked detour… and after taking said detour and discovering our shortcut hooked back up with I-70 just a few miles from where we left it.
Yup. Classic. Three hungry children, two lost adults, and a ‘burban full of frayed nerves. I really can’t do it justice here, but I’m pretty sure our respective children don’t trust us to navigate our way across a room anymore. Ah, well. A little disillusionment never hurt anyone.
So anyway, we ended up eating at The Village Tavern near the Flat Irons Crossing Mall. I have to say, the pleasant interior, friendly waitress, and good, rib-stickin’ fare was enough to soothe our tempers quite quickly. I got the oven-roasted turkey sandwich with potato salad, the kids got shrimp scampi and a grilled cheese sandwich, and Mindi ordered the Maryland-style crab cakes. The waitress recommended a couple of appetizers we didn’t feel we had time to sample – the hot crab dip and freshly fried potato chips with a side of dippin’ ranch. It was a cool place, and we certainly left in better spirits than we entered with.
Unfortunately, however, our navigational debacle ate too much time to hit the other four, so we headed into the city to check into our hotel and get ready for the Rockies/Padres game (so much fun (!) even though the Padres prevailed). We’ll have to head north over the next couple of days and knock the other four off in quick succession…
Tomorrow: More fun, food, and our meeting with the good people of the SAME Café…
Dine Out Challenge: No Love on Day 3
September 23, 2009
This is going to be a quick post today as we batted 1 for 2 yesterday in our attempt to get to each of the restaurants in Grand Junction. Yep, we missed one (I’ll get to that in a minute) so I’m off to try to get there today before we take off for Edwards this afternoon.
Tuesday was by far the oddest of our three days on the road. We headed to Grand Junction (about 90 miles from Glenwood Springs) in hopes of hitting No Coast Sushi for dinner and Carrows for dessert. All started well, we began the evening at No Coast Sushi. They have a creative menu and the rolls we had were quite tasty.
We stepped into the Twilight Zone when we inquired about the Dine Out and how the restaurant was contributing. Apparently you have to ask them about it proactively (something we have been doing at each stop), and then if you sign a permission slip saying you want them to donate to the cause, they will donate 3% of your ticket to Share Our Strength. I’m calling bullshit on this weak attempt at raising funds; I don’t expect anyone save Matt & I are going to ask them and if they do, they most likely will balk at writing a permission note to donate. Meanwhile, No Coast is reaping the benefits of good PR exposure on the Share Our Strength website. Lame.
Next, we went on the hunt for Carrows, which according to the address listed on the Dine Out website was located on Horizon Drive, a main thoroughfare in Junction. After three laps spanning the entire length of the street, we gave up and headed home. I gave a call to the number on the SOS website this morning and turns out the restaurant is a Coco’s, the sister chain of Carrows. Ugh. We saw the Coco’s but didn’t even think about going in, not knowing that Carrows means Coco’s (or vice versa) in some languages.
So, while yesterday was frustrating, I’m off to turn that around by heading to Coco’s right now.