My five-day trip to Denver this past week revealed three things:
- Time off is downright restorative.
- Denver is a surprisingly beautiful city, especially cool if you’re outdoorsy or a foodie.
- If you pay attention, you’ll find evidence of a uniquely quirky sense of humor all over town.
I first noted that unconventional playfulness when I walked past a sign displaying what may be my favorite-ever name for a business. I still laugh when I think of calling a tattoo removal company What Were You Inking?
Then we walked past what used to be Olingers Mortuaries, which has been turned into Linger restaurant. That cracked me up, especially when I heard that the restaurant writes (or used to write) out its dessert offerings on toe tags. The lights in the neon sign have been altered so that at night the sign reads Linger Eatuaries. During the day when unlit, you can still see the original Olingers Mortuaries lettering.
We continued our walk to our lunch spot, where our menu noted that eating raw seafood and under-cooked meats can be dangerous. Then it added that walking puts us at risk for falling and eating increases the chances of choking. I laughed out loud.
While walking past the Capitol building, one of the friends I was visiting told me about the Pinche Tacos cart that used to be located at the edge of the gardens. “You can’t call it that,” a Hispanic Councilman decided when he noticed the cart. (For those of you who don’t know, the word pinche translates to the f-bomb in Spanish.) He got his way with the food cart. It disappeared, only to be replaced by a Pinche Taqueria storefront that has become so successful that there are now two brick-and-mortar establishments, with a third on the way.
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couple of days later while passing the Monkey Barrel Bar, I noticed its mural—a flying money, his private parts dangling in the wind, holding a beer called Lunch. Of course, I had to take a picture of that.
Our Denver food tour ranged from a fantastic noodle place called Bones to Stoic & Genuine, the seafood restaurant from Jennifer Jasinski, Beth Gruitch and Jorel Pierce Stoic (located in the stunningly renovated Union Station) with a No ocean. No Worries tagline. Our tour also included Steve’s Snappin’ Dogs, where I noted the T-shirts that read Bite Me.
The last morning, my friends and I hit Habit Doughnut Dispensary. As the window sign notes, the store dispenses doughnuts, coffee and necessities, the latter which include airplane-size bottles of booze and, yes, condoms. 
The doughnut shop’s tag line sums up my feeling about Denver. Gotta Habit.
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