Wazee Supper Club blends playful decor with serious culinary endeavor
With the new era of dining and drinking at Wazee Supper Club comes the wine offerings assembled by Wine Director Greg Cheval. He’s part of the whole Wynkoop family of restaurants, so he makes his mark on wine lists from the dining room at Wazee to Gaetano’s in the Highlands. What makes his wine program so special? Well, he’s got Infinite Monkey Theorem on tap, for starters. Then, he’s got a perfect balance of reasonably-priced Italian bottles and California dynamos that kick dining up a notch. More at GaetanosItalian.com.
Denver has its share of downtown historic landmarks – Lanny’s Clocktower, Union Station, the Taco Bell on the 16th and California – but when it comes to dining, we tend to focus on the new. What are chefs doing these days to blow our culinary minds?
To natives and foodies, however, there is – just occasionally – a happy mix of both. Enter Wazee Supper Club.
As history tells it, the Supper Club took up residence in 1974, the brainchild of Angelo and Jim Karagas who were fraternal transplants from Milwaukee. The two are known Denver-wide for My Brother’s Bar – housed at the corner of 15th and Platte, but Wazee Supper Club was a venture that took on a life of its own.
In those days, the aging building – once a plumbing supply house – sported brick walls, wrought iron gas lamps strung from a lofted ceiling, and the inspiration for a delicious new watering hole. The Karagas brothers took the space, laid down checkered flooring, set up banquettes that snaked through the room, hoisted a loft at the back for seating, and stretched a wooden bar on the east side of the dining room. In the kitchen, they whipped up some of the best pizza the city has ever known, and at the mahogany bar, they poured beer that Milwaukee natives – and Denver’s sudsy locals – loved.
Since the Supper Club’s birth in 1974, it has become a Denver icon – an undeniable piece of our city’s history.
Enter the team culled by the owners from Wynkoop Brewery – a bubbling, energetic cohort led by Chef Bob Whitmer, complemented by wine expert Greg Cheval and GM Shannon Baker. To them – and to the whole team behind the culinary, beverage, and dining room renovations – my hat is off.
The new Supper Club, given a bit of a facelift last year, is a gracious tribute to what was and a refreshing take on what is to come. The dining room is open now – a perfect way to capture the energy of the space while giving room for live jazz every Wednesday. The bar looms large on one side, and the loft seating still presides at the back of the restaurant. The menu, meanwhile, is a playful new look at serious eats – including the introduction of an “entrée” section previously left off.
The food is an unpretentious collection of apps, salads, sammys, and mains that touch on everything from American-Italian-style Spaghetti and Meatballs to a Scottish Salmon Sandwich topped with a hard-boiled egg.
So, really, it comes down to this: If you’ve been to Wazee, go again. And if you’ve never walked through its doors for wine and some eats – well, seize the day. You can’t really call yourself a Denverite until you enjoy a meal in this iconic eatery; and you can’t wear a foodie’s toque until you indulge in some saucy Wazee pizza pie.
Wazee Supper Club is located at 1600 15th Street in downtown Denver. Online at WazzeeSupperClub.com.
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