Staying near Denver airport; taxi downtown to eat?

Hello,

We're flying into Denver in a couple of weeks, and spending one night at a hotel near the airport before driving to SW Colorado the following day.

We will probably be getting to the hotel by around 5pm or so. We're looking for a good place to eat on a Tuesday night; it doesn't have to be right in that area as long as it's within reasonable taxi fare distance, as we won't have a rental car until the next morning.

We'll be tired, having just made a trans-atlantic flight. My SO prefers vegetarian food but will happily eat fish & seafood. I've looked through these forums, and it seems like most places are downtown. I went to the Bastiens website (because I want a good steak) and their menu looks to be pretty diverse. Can anyone give me an idea about how much it would cost to take a taxi there and back?

If that's too far, can anyone recommend a good Mexican or seafood restaurant near the Denver airport, please? I really want to stay away from the chains as much as possible; I know there are several around the hotels in that area, but we prefer home-grown restaurants.

(And any tips on places to eat on Hwy 285 south to Hwy 50, then west toward Montrose would be appreciated, too! :)

Many thanks in advance :)

DIA is far away from downtown Denver, and quite aways from many places. It would be a helluva taxi ride to downtown.

Sorry I cannot be of any help on suggestions.
Maybe someone else here can suggest something?

Maybe Aurora might be closer.

The Mayor, I think is also familiar with Montrose, as I am.

I ate at the Red Barn, and they had a great steak. I stayed at the motel right next to it, so it was a no brainer to eat there, and I remember that meal.
Big Moo Cow on top of the building.

BTW, welcome to Roadfood!

I agree with the above. There is very little near DIA...and DIA is nowhere near downtown (a heckuva cab ride). You might look at trying to grab a one-day car rental on Priceline (likely less than a cab ride - and offers much more flexibility).

I was car-less at DIA (which is just on the outskirts of the middle of nowhere) and wound up eating at Ted's Montana Grill ... a chain ... It was pretty good though ... supposedly owned by Ted Turner, the place specializes in Bison.

They say no freezer or no microwave in the building.

I had the meatloaf. The bartender served a valid drink.

I am guessing they have some sort of fish.

http://www.tedsmontanagrill.com/menu.html

Thank you all for your responses. Man, ya'll weren't kidding about it being in the middle of nowhere - I just looked at the "street view" on Google Maps. Wow!

Looks like there's a Bennigans near our hotel, and the Moonlight Diner is about a mile south. Someone's also tagged Google Earth with a Ruby Tuesday's and DiCicco's just south of the cluster of hotels on Tower Road, although the image still shows a nicely-plowed field.

I guess we'll see what we see when we get there. ;)

Thanks again, everyone!

Well, we were too tired to do anything once we finally made it to Denver, so luckily the hotel provided a small list of places that deliver to the Tower Road hotels. We chose the Blue Asian Cafe, and were very pleased with the delivery speed, price, and food. The garlic eggplant was excellent. Would highly recommend them.

Wish I could say the same for the Gunsmoke truckstop just east of Buena Vista, but unfortunately I can't review the food because we got tired of waiting to be acknowledged. We didn't see a "please wait to be seated" sign, so we sat at a table. There were maybe 4 tables occupied, but apparently the waitress who was assigned to the one we chose was on her break, because she was sitting at the counter. She saw us, as did her colleague, who was standing behind the counter and occasionally wiping it with a cloth. We waited for about five minutes, then as we got up to leave, the waitress jumped up to bring menus over. We just kept walking.

Drove on into Buena Vista and had a lovely cup of coffee and a warm blueberry muffin at BongoBilly's.

We decided to wait until Gunnison to eat lunch. Stopped at the QuarterCircle and had a very nice Italian salad (my hubby), while I had my first cheeseburger of the trip. It was scrummy! (Google "decent cheeseburger UK" and you'll see why that's important.)

I'm glad we were ignored at the Gunsmoke, because we wouldn't have stopped at either of the two others if we hadn't been. Sometimes things just work out right.

quote:

Originally posted by Hungry Ex-Pat

Wish I could say the same for the Gunsmoke truckstop just east of Buena Vista, but unfortunately I can't review the food because we got tired of waiting to be acknowledged. We didn't see a "please wait to be seated" sign, so we sat at a table. There were maybe 4 tables occupied, but apparently the waitress who was assigned to the one we chose was on her break, because she was sitting at the counter. She saw us, as did her colleague, who was standing behind the counter and occasionally wiping it with a cloth. We waited for about five minutes, then as we got up to leave, the waitress jumped up to bring menus over. We just kept walking.

Maybe I do things differently as I grew up in the NYC area. But I notice alot of people will "wait to be acknowledged" and simply leave if not. I used to see this occasionally when I lived in Seattle (another reason why I couldn't wait to get the frig out of there) If I feel I'm waiting an unusually long time to be served, I have no problem approaching waitstaff, hostess or whomever and ask if someone can come to my table. I've always done this and never thought twice about it.

We had the same exact situation and chose Ted Turner's restaurant...I think it was called the Montana Grill? They have one in downtown Denver, too. they serve fish, steaks, etc. They also have a website. Check it out. We really liked it...The drinks were a bit pricy, but the food was very good and reasonable. A few others have disagreed. Do a search and decide for yourselves. We'd definately would go back again.

We got a room on priceline.com right near the airport...It was a Marriot and it was excellent. You might want to try it. Literally got it for half price.

You do not want to travel on I-25 downtown..Too far.

Thanks again to all for the responses. We again ended up being too tired to go out on our final evening prior to departure, having driven across Colorado that day. So we did another delivery order; this time from Mattie Sopranos. The pizzas were *excellent* and huge. A tad expensive, but oh, so good!

Other places to mention during the trip were:

Montrose:

1. El Jimador: good nachos & chili rellenos.

2. Costa Alegra: WONDERFUL little Mexican restaurant specializing in seafood, although in a slightly rough neighborhood. Don't let the outside appearance fool you. It was our favorite place of the whole trip.

3. Cafe110 - great lunches; very nice cheeseburgers. Good veggie options.

4. Can't remember the name of it, but it's in the building that used to be the "new" A&W, right next to the Rose Bowl on Highway 50 on the east side of town. No frills, but great Mexican food for a very reasonable price. Next to Garlic Mikes, which was okay but nothing much to write home about.

We also ate at the Red Barn a couple of times, but to be honest, I wasn't that impressed. It seemed to have gone downhill since I was there last year. The service was good, but the food, although plentiful and prepared as ordered, was very bland. I had a cheeseburger during one visit; it was cooked exactly as requested (juicy!) but was bland. On another visit I had a $29 t-bone. It was also cooked precisely as ordered (on the rare side of medium-rare) and it was extremely tender, but it was almost completely without any flavor whatsoever.

We had an evening at the Camp Robber, and it was the low culinary point of the trip. We went with another couple, and were seated in a little room that also housed a large group of people with three children - two of whom who ran rampant all over the dining room (and back & forth to the outside the building so they could pound on the dining room windows - what a treat *that* was!) The other one just sat in his highchair and screamed intermittently. This lasted during 3/4 of our meal before they all finally left. The food? Don't really remember it. Too stressed. I think we had fish. It really doesn't matter.

Delta:

Granny's Drive-in (or it may be called Grandma's; not sure of the name.) It's on Hwy 550 just south of town, on the east side of the road. Hashbrowns to die for.

Awesome! This forum is so cool! I've always wanted to have a guide on where to eat during roadtrips! This was so helpful! Thanks

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limos in denver co

The next time you or anyone else flies into DIA, you may want to try Diciccos Italian family restaurant. Long time favorite in Arvada, Colorado, they have opened a second location nearby DIA at 67th and Tower Road.

DiCicco's has what it takes to survive recession

Also, for anyone looking for a great steak, and having time  to fill at DIA, take a short cab  ride  to  Aurora.

Colorado Steak Restaurant - Denver Steak Restaurant