About Us
 Big Red F Restaurant Group is a collection of five different concepts
in six locations in the Boulder-Denver Area. We started this in March
of 1994 when Zolo Grill took over the old Swenson's Ice Cream parlor in
The Village Shopping Center. The thought was to do a fun southwestern
restaurant as there was nothing like it in Boulder. We like to think
it's the next best thing to being in Taos and Santa Fe.
Nine months
after Zolo opened, we opened Jax Fish House on the Pearl Street Mall.
The idea again being great, fun seafood, not presently being done like
this in Boulder. The center oyster bar was an immediate hit and Jax has
been thumping ever since. Jax Denver found a home in November of 1996
in the old Terminal Bar in LoDo near Union Station in an old building
that Jack Kerouac used to live in and Tom Waits wrote a song about. The
same effort and end result happened there too.
Next, a big square egg
we like to call the Blue Plate Kitchen opened in Boulder across from
Zolo in December of 1998. The food and the idea, upscale comfort food
with sandwiches and pies as big as your head still get a lots of props,
but The Blue Plate was short lived. Cafe Rhumba opened in Boulder on
Pearl Street in the summer of 1999 on the same block as Jax. Night after night people showed up for the
mojitos, the conch fritters, the music, the dancing, and the patio, but to us it was still missing something and after 9 great years we closed Rhumba's doors and opened our newest concept, Centro, latin kitchen & refreshment palace. With Centro I wanted a place where you could get delicious food, handcrafted cocktails and amazing service night after night.
LoLa Coastal
Mexican opened in the summer of 2002 on Pearl Street in South Denver in
a small store front that was many things including the original home to
Sushi Den which now lives two doors down. Lola has recently relocated
to a much larger space, in the old Olinger Mortuary where Buffalo Bill
Cody spent the winter of 1917 in a state of rest in the basement until
the ground was soft enough to dig him a hole on the top of Lookout
Mountain. The new space is more suitable for throwin' the nightly
Mexican Seafood party that is LoLa, in the East Highlands area with an
incredible views of the Denver skyline. The West End Tavern, next door
to Jax, was a Boulder institution for 18 years before it closed in
November 2003. We bought it and opened it up three months later in
February as................The West End Tavern.
Each restaurant is operated by a team of the hardest working
individuals you will ever meet. Not because they work all the time as
in most restaurant scenarios, but because they work with intention and
commitment and bring an attitude and integrity to work each day that is
unmatched. It seems we are blessed with the most incredible people who
want to work with us, past and present.
Everyday at the restaurants, we try to throw a party and get everything
right. We line out the music we know our friends will love, polish the
silverware, check the temperature and the lighting and then create the
most delicious food and have crisp cold cocktails ready for immediate
consumption when our guests arrive. We clean every square inch of the
house, wondering how it could get dirty after such a thorough cleaning
just the day before. We assemble a staff of really intelligent friends
to help service the nightly soiree and try to explain to them the
purpose for throwing this party in hopes that they will embrace our
ideas as their own.
In our kitchens, we have a collection of individuals whose mission each
day is to do their jobs with more skill and integrity than anyone else
on the planet. Every day at lunch and dinner, our friends start to show
up, and before long we have more friends than we expected and they are
actually waiting with their names on a list for a chance to sit at a
table at our party. During the party we try and constantly ask our
friends how they are doing and if there is anything they need that
isn't within their reach. As the party winds down, we try and walk each
guest to our door, thanking them so much for coming to our party and
inviting them back tomorrow. Same time, same place.
Running a successful restaurant is like juggling ice cubes on a hot
day: you have to be quick and precise, sourcing the freshest foods,
being the home of all things seasonal, and keeping the chalkboards
constantly fresh in an effort to do your very best to serve an
incredibly fresh product smack in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.
This is what we try to accomplish at our restaurants every single day.
I grew up in Boulder and after barely making it out of Fairview High
School, attended the Culinary Institute of America. After graduating
and traveling and tasting my way through Europe, I lived and cooked in
kitchens around the United States including New Orleans, Chicago, San
Francisco, New York City, Miami and northern Michigan, before returning
home. I was co-owner of the original Lick Skillet Cafe in Gold Hill
which has still got to be one of the coolest little restaurants ever to
be a little restaurant. Then I did a stint as executive chef of Cliff
Young's Restaurant in Denver where I learned directly from Cliff what
it meant to serve people with passion. I was chef-owner of Q's
Restaurant in the historic Hotel Boulderado before I sold it in June of
1993 to John Platt who is the hardest working man in show business. I
presently run this Company with the most amazing group of managers,
chefs, employees and friends who all help steer this happy ship daily
and keep it off the reef when it gets dark at night.
And most importantly, without the loyal support of our incredible customers, none of this would be possible.
Cheers, Dave Query
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