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The face of the River North neighborhood changes almost daily. Last week, the old Denargo Market -- the warehouses where famers unloaded produce for decades, and where Jack Kerouac did some heavy lifting sixty years ago -- came down, changing the view to the west from the Broadway/Brighton Boulevard viaduct. But it's on the ground in RiNo that you can really see the changes.

Or taste them, if you're at the Fuel Cafe at 3455 Ringsby Court, just west of the Platte River in the Taxi project. Since January, Fuel has been keeping residents/workers in the area fueled, serving up breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday, as well as offering to-go items and doing some catering for the businesses in Taxi.

And soon -- very soon -- owner Bob Blair hopes to augment his lineup of breakfast items, pastries, sandwiches, soups and salads with alcoholic beverages. With any luck, he'll get the okay on Fuel's liquor-license application before the expansive patio is ready to open, which should be within the week. After that, this urban oasis just might be one of the city's best spots to refuel, particularly once Blair is able to add evening hours, as he hopes to do. -- Patricia Calhoun

The concept behind the Colfax Marathon seemed like a can't-miss proposition. After all, Colfax Avenue -- America's longest main street -- runs exactly the length of a marathon, and passes through some very colorful parts of three towns. But what worked conceptually didn't work in reality, according to race organizers, since the east-west route from Aurora to the edge of Golden ended with a punishing, uphill slog, and a west-east route was impossible, because runners would be headed into the sun.

And so this year, the Colfax Marathon will not start on Colfax at all, but in City Park. And it will skip the best part of Colfax, the Bluebird District, completely.

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When Goodfriends closes at the end of service on Saturday, May 17 (or, more likely, early on the morning of May 18), it will close for good.

With it will go a lot of memories -- since the restaurant/watering hole at 3100 East Colfax Avenue has been open almost thirty years, and is the last survivor of Denver's once-thriving fern bar scene. So stop in -- soon -- and raise a glass (I recommend one of the margaritas) to Goodfriends. And while you're there, you can also toast the restaurant that will be moving into the space: the equally venerable Annie's Café, which will leave its longtime home on East Eighth Avenue next month, getting more space, the contents and a full liquor license in the bargain.

And Goodfriends's menu and margaritas will live on, too, since siblings Racines and Dixons offer much the same lineup. (Owners Lee Goodfriend and David Racine will be on hand for last call at Goodfriends, their first venture.)

As for the ferns, they went with the furniture. -- -- Patricia Calhoun

Gagging over an ill-advised (and expensive) Colorado tourism campaign that invited visitors to taste our misspelled and out-of-date cuisine, last month I invited readers to send their responses to this question: "What does Colorado Taste Like to You?"

And although we're still accepting entries (you can submit one simply by posting a comment below), it's hard to imagine anyone writing a more lyrical look at Denver's current dining scene than this missive from Chris Hall:

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Beatrice & Woodsley, the new restaurant opening Wednesday, May 14, at 38 South Broadway, has quite a story behind it. That’s because it’s brought to us by the folks behind Two-Fisted Mario’s and Mario’s Double Daughters Salotto, which was named for a pair of conjoined twins. “We do a lot of research,” explains co-owner Kevin Delk.

And in this round of research, they found Beatrice, the daughter of French winemakers who moved to California in the 1800s to start a vineyard there, because they heard the soil was good. Woodsley came from a family of coopers in Oregon, who started making vats for the wine. He and Beatrice fell in love, and the couple moved to Colorado, where Woodsley built Beatrice a cabin in the mountains.

The restaurant picks up where the lovers left off a century ago, with a setting that recreates the feel of a cabin in the woods – complete with trees. “You can see all the love,” Delk says. “You find mementos, and your chef friend sees the cast-iron skillet, and you basically have the meal of a lifetime under the stars.” All of the dishes are based on turn-of-the-last-century cuisines, although in a nod to this-century sensibilities, they’re spiced up with more than just salt and pepper, and served as small plates. The restaurant also features a small but ambitious wine list, with sixteen wines sold by the half-glass.

After a week of practice parties, Beatrice & Woodsley will be open by reservation only for a few weeks, while the kitchen works out the kinks. But hey, what do you want from a place that’s been closed for a century? For reservations, call 303-777-3505. -- Patricia Calhoun

Yes, it's commendable that the current issue of Draft magazine includes Denver International Airport in its "Beer Drinker's Layover" guide to fourteen airports with good selections of microbrews. Commendable, even if mysterious, since Draft calls DIA "one of the West Coast's craft beer meccas."

But there's a bigger problem with the magazine's DIA description: It makes no mention of Mesa Verde Lounge, the Concourse A eatery whose selection of over two dozen local microbrews earned it the Best Last Taste of Colorado award in the Best of Denver 2008.

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Last month, the Colorado Tourism Office offered a taste of this state to New Yorkers in the form of “Colorado High Altitude Concrete,” made by the distinctly un-Coloradan Danny Meyer. Anyone hungry for more was referred to a website that touts our fine cuisine of rattler cakes and Rocky Mountain oysters, and serves up enough spelling mistakes to make us look like a state already filled with illiterate peasants.

This month, the CTO has placed a full-page “Let’s Talk Colorado” promo in Food & Wine magazine, which sells those ads for $74,500 ($65,000 with a twelve-time contract). Beneath a picture of two convertible-driving fiftysomethings (no RV for this demographic!) gazing at stunning scenery is this copy: “Let’s talk road trips. Let’s talk breathtaking. Let’s talk Colorado.”

But in this magazine whose readers are rendered speechless by a perfect soufflé, let’s not talk about food. At all. If you think that's smart marketing, I've got an order of Rocky Mountain oysters for you.

There's still time for Coloradans to do their own talking about this state's breathtaking dining scene. In the comments section below are some of the answers readers have made to this question: "What Does Colorado Taste Like to You?" Add your own, and you could win dinner with Jason Sheehan. -- Patricia Calhoun

After thirty years, Taqueria Patzcuaro is finally adding a patio to the side of its building at 2616 West 32nd Avenue. The duplex that was there has been cleared away, and the restaurant's owners hope to have an outdoor dining area in place by June.

And not a moment too soon, because three decades after this classic Mexican outpost first appeared in 1978, it's more popular than ever. This past Sunday morning, both old regulars and new fans (this part of Highland is gentrifying rapidly) were lined up outside the door, eager for a plate of huevos ranchero and a bowl of the Best Free Chips and Salsa in town, as noted here in the Best of Denver 2008.

By comparison, Benny's Restaurant y Tequila Bar is a relative baby: Although he'd cooked in kitchens around town, Benny Armas didn't open his own spot until 1987. But it caught on fast, and after expanding once (the original space is now occupied by Mizuna), he moved Benny's up the street to the former home of Chef Henry at 301 East Seventh Avenue.

This place is vast, but it's not big enough for the army of Benny's faithful, and so Armas is adding a second patio, along Grant Street, which will be used mostly for overflow bar crowd when it opens next month. But if you ask nicely, we're sure you can get the reader's choice for the Best Free Chips and Salsa -- and unlike the one-basket-per-table policy at Taqueria Patzcuaro, Benny's free basket is bottomless.

As is my affection for both of these joints.-- Patricia Calhoun

I haven't eaten at Annie's Cafe in years. But I still have fond memories of the great gringo green chile that was the perfect way to celebrate the end of yet another all-nighter getting Westword out the door.

For that matter, I haven't eaten at Goodfriends in years -- although I did down several drinks at its bar last Christmas, while judging the Mile High Holiday cocktail contest. And I have fond memories of Goodfriends, too, which when it opened 29 years ago was the first restaurant in town to feature built-in shelves for free publications. (Before that, 3100 East Colfax Avenue was the home of Pick-A-Rib, shown above, which was not a Westword distribution spot).

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Here's my favorite story about the Mexico City Lounge -- a great neighborhood joint that was in the ballpark neighborhood long before Coors Field ever entered the picture. Back in the days when Denver having a Major League Team was just a pipe dream, Pete Coors was having lunch with some pals at the Mexico City, and the bar was having problems with its Coors tap.

So Pete went down in the basement (which couldn't have been pretty, because this storefront at 2115 Larimer Street dates back to Victorian days), fixed the tap, and then came back upstairs and finished his beer and tacos.

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