Reader: Hideaway Steakhouse can't hide from its challenges

• I live in Northglenn.  I usually eat downtown when I want a nice meal with good drinks and interesting food. I also want local sustainable. When I ate at the Hideaway, I thought the atmosphere and decor were very nice. The prices beat the corporate steak places on 120th... My steak was cooked to order and enjoyable, sides were iffy at best. I didn't like the service - I ate at the bar.  I ordered a glass of Zinfandel, I got white. This has only happened to me in Texas and at Thai Basil. I don't know why it would be on the menu, but... then the bartender tried to convince me that I had ordered it!  The saddest part is there are so few local restaurants up here. However, I have hope they will figure it out. I need to go back so that I can help the recovery if needed and support the local business it is.   We can't be so pompous to simply want local we have to support it.  One more thing, I am not familiar with the former chef, but the menu was very "Ruth's Chris" from what I recall.  Nothing that spectacular.  Simple fresh food with good prices should do it... maybe some advertising.

• this is a story that is so familiar to anyone who is in the biz. happens every day, some well intending neophytes, who perhaps, have had some real success with a dinner party in their well appointed home think that running a restaurant would be so FUN, they think anyone can do it, then they open and realize that you can lose so much money, so fast, that they panic and stop communicating and trusting the qualified employees and managers whom they hired to RUN their biz in the first place. Why did they hire Chris Cina? he is way qualified, educated at the top culinary school in America, developed his own pedigree and then went on to run businesses for others all his career and these idiots now think they know more than him even though they have never spent one 15 hour day working hard in a kitchen. so you restaurant novices still think its a life of uber-glamor? go spend a minimum of a decade in a restaurant position as a chef or manager, by then you will just scratching the surface of what it takes to survive the opening year or two in your own place. I hope Chris finds himself a great job so he can support his family after 20 years of dedicating his life to the, ever rewarding, hospitality industry. with any justice these imbeciles can go on losing their financials asses for a long time. Karma is one of the truly fun things about our industry.

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