Denver Blog

Westword's annual Best of Denver issue hits streets (and online) on Wednesday afternoon -- a monument to our (and your) favorite things, places, people and burritos in Denver.

This morning's Denver Post offered a little sneak preview, so we will too. After the jump, find out which TV personalities earned our annual nod for Best Hair. To see previous winners, cruise to westword.com/bestof.

This March, Westword will publish its 26th Best of Denver issue, a celebration of all the things, people, places and burritos that make Denver the city it is.

What does this mean? A few things. First, it means we need your help: Our 2009 Best of Denver poll is now online, and we'd like you to take it -- to vote for your favorite things about this town of yours. It's a write-in deal, so don't worry; you won't be constrained by our sometimes-shitty tastes.

This also means that last year's was our 25th issue, and 25, as you know, is a pretty round number. So last year, we took the time to gather the previous 24 Best Of issues and stick them in one place. So if you're interested in what used to qualify as Best in, say, 1986 or 1992 or 2001, you should go there. It's like a time-capsule, only they didn't build a SuperTarget in the field where you buried it. -- Joe Tone

In 2007, when Westword published its twenty-fourth Best Of Awards, things were looking up for the Rockies: Matt Holliday, our winner for "Best Rocky," was a rising star, and he and the rest of the team's young players were -- who knew? -- just months away from an improbable World Series run.

Now the Rockies are back to rebuilding. And Holiday is gone.

What else has changed? Read our Best of Denver 2007 winners here.

Our favorite winner from Westword's twenty-third Best of Denver Awards has to be that for "Best (Very) Late-Night People Watching," the Ramada Inn on Colfax:

The Ramada Inn Downtown Denver is like a rock-and-roll RV park on weekend nights, when tour buses crowd the parking lot and bleary-eyed musicians trickle through the lobby at all hours. The crash pad for artists and crews in town for shows at the Fillmore, Ogden and Bluebird theaters -- as well as an actual hotel for normal people in town for things like vacations and conventions -- the Ramada is a totally entertaining culture clash. On a single floor, you might find a cluster of cattlemen, a sweet family of four from Omaha, the Insane Clown Posse and a bunch of college kids tripping on acid after a killer String Cheese Incident show. This human mishmash creates some amusingly weird scenes inside the elevator, and the Ramada's rock-star element also makes for fun rounds of Who's Who in the Lobby: Is that Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, or just a Capitol Hill hipster look-alike? Only the front-desk clerk knows for sure.

Read the rest of the winners from our Best of Denver 2006 awards.

How does a city change in four years? A look at Westword's twenty-second Best Of Denver awards, bestowed in 2005, give a sense. We called Devil's Food Bakery the Best Waffle joint, "a dangerous place firmly dedicated to helping those with a weakness for the venal wrongs of gluttony to pave their way to hell with waffles." Best Hangover Breakfast went to El Taco de México, for its menudo, that "hearty, spicy, slow-cooked stew made from hominy, chiles and stock, plus tripe, feet, knuckles, trotters or any other unattractive leftover cut of a cow." Mirepoix earned Best Expense-Account Breakfast, while the Best Power Breakfast went to Racines.

Do these and our other picks hold up? Cruise our Best of Denver 2005 selections and decide for yourself.

Westword published its twenty-first Best Of Denver issue and 2004, with nods to John Hickenlooper (Best Political Upset), the Denver Public Library's web site (Best Free Service), Jeff Bzdelik (Best Pro Coach) and High Street Speakeasy (Best New Bar).

See Best of Denver 2004 here.

In 2003, Westword published its twentieth Best of Denver issue, a celebration of the city that saluted everything from Best Goofy Sports Gizmo (the humidor and hyperbaric chamber introduced by Rockies manager Clint Hurdle to combat Denver’s thin air) to Best Blues Musician (Otis Taylor — finally a national star, after thirty years of making music locally) to Best Must-See Local TV: JohnsTV, the city’s new show on Channel 8 featuring guys busted in prostitute stings. But the real must-see TV was over at Channel 4, where Jim Benemann won the award for Best News Anchor.

“Winning the Best Anchor award was a special honor, since it came the year I made the switch to CBS4,” Benemann says. “The award threw my mom for a loop, though; she thought I was still a sophomore at CSU.”

Benemann’s been in the big chair at Channel 4 for five years now, and his steady presence and wry delivery at ten o’clock has helped the station make steady inroads on Channel 9, the longtime ratings leader that’s an NBC affiliate. This is one anchor that won’t get dropped anytime soon.

Click here to see the rest of the 2003 Best of Denver Winners.

In 2002, Westword published its nineteenth Best of Denver issue, a celebration of the city that saluted everything from the Best New Festival (Frozen Dead Guy Days took the chill off March in Nederland) to Best Start for a New Neighborhood (the Millennium Bridge was beginning to rise above Riverfront Park) to the Best Taco (the editorial pick was Jack-n-Grill, and for the first time ever, readers gave the nod to a local outfit rather than Taco Bell!). But the real winner that year was the Best Place to Dress Like a Cowboy: Rockmount Ranch Wear.

For decades — and we mean decades — the Weil family had been running its wholesale business out of an old warehouse on Wazee Street, specializing in Western shirts with the snap buttons invented by Jack A. Weil, pictured, the company’s founder who’d just marked his hundredth birthday. And to prove that you can teach an old dog new tricks, the Weil family — Jack A., son Jack B. and grandson Steve — celebrated by opening a retail store in their building, letting the whole town in on the party. Six years later, Jack B. has passed on, but Jack A. still goes to work every day — and thanks to a renovation supervised by Steve, Rockmount’s now the Best-Looking Place to Dress Like a Cowboy, too. Yee-haw!

To see the rest of the Best of Denver Winners from 2002, click here.

In 2001, Westword published its eighteenth Best of Denver issue, a celebration of the city that saluted everything from the Best Performance by an East High Graduate (Don Cheadle scored in Traffic) to the Best Appearance by Coloradans in an Inaugural Parade (the Precision Lawn Chair Demonstration Team marched for new president George W. Bush) to the Best Room With a View — the Capitol Dome, a great place to see the city, and one that would soon be shut off from the public by the events of 9/11. But one dome just keeps getting more polished: that of the Best Media Manipulator, Jon Caldara.

Caldara, the former chairman of the RTD board, had big zapatos to fill when he became president of the Independence Institute, taking over for Tom Tancredo, who’d moved on to Congress. But Caldara didn’t miss a beat. He quickly gained a reputation as the mouth that roared, the go-to guy when a reporter needed a politically incorrect quote — or a radio station needed a host with the gift of gab. And he hasn’t mellowed a bit in the past seven years, as the recent dust-up over his language regarding a Hillary/Obama encounter proves. Coming soon: an Independence Institute T-shirt with the slogan “I got bitch-slapped by Jon Caldara — and I loved it.”

Here are the rest of the 2001 Best of Denver winners:

In 2000, Westword published its seventeenth Best of Denver issue, a celebration of the city that saluted everything from the Best Name for the New Football Stadium (brewmeister John Hickenlooper’s campaign to keep the Mile High Stadium brand inspired customers to suggest he run for mayor), to Best Performance by a Coloradan (local girl Jessica Biel was making good – very good – in movies and national magazines) to Best Political Resurrection (twelve years as governor would be enough to send most people into retirement – but Roy Romer moved on to a job as superintendent of the Los Angeles school system).

But the biggest resurrection of all involved the transformation of a dilapidated building at Clarkson and Colfax that had gone through numerous incarnations – from roller rink to wrestling ring to recreational sports center. By 1999, bombed-out buildings in Beirut seemed to have more concert-venue potential than the Mammoth Events Center – but a few million dollars and a name change later, it had been transformed into Denver’s Best New Old Music Hall: the Fillmore Auditorium. With acts ranging from Dylan to the Cult to Flogging Molly, the Fillmore continues to rock this town.

Here are the rest of the Best of Denver winners from 2000