Snooze and the Ballpark

It's Katherine again today. We just got back from our regular Saturday morning breakfast at the ballpark Snooze. This is our favorite weekend ritual. We wake up early (just happens), drive through uncrowded streets and highways, and head into downtown on 20th where the sunrise is in just the right spot to make the city glow. We hang a left at the newest medical marijuana shop (walk-ins welcome) and head a bit north to find a free parking spot and get to Snooze in time to beat the line that will inevitably start forming before we leave.

We love this Snooze. So many reasons. The obvious reason is the food, but for me it's the pancakes. I don't like pancakes. They are never quite right at altitude. They are sometimes tough or spongy or crusty or soggy--but rarely good. It's a miracle I even tried a pancake at Snooze. I credit 5280 for championing the pineapple upside down pancake next to an excellent photo of one. We tried it. It's the best pancake in the world. Our granddaughters would disagree because they're voting for the chocolate chip pancake, but what do they know--they're just little kids.

I'm not a great food reviewer because I get in such food ruts. Good reviewers try everything and present the ups and downs of what they've ordered over the course of several months. I've been eating at Snooze for over three years now and I've really only gone through three ruts.

I started with an eggs benedict rut. I like the traditional kind best, but I've sampled any number of their unique approaches. The duck confit on polenta version was pretty darn yummy, but not there long enough for me to get too stuck on them. I've been through a wonderful corned beef hash rut as well. I recommend it. Now I'm on having a plain pancake, crispy bacon and one egg over easy rut. Simple. That plain pancake is so incredible.

We also order Bloody Mary's and coffee. We take Snooze coffee home and it's what we drink each morning. There's a nice story behind the coffee and the owner, but mostly it's really good coffee and I don't get scary jitters if I drink an extra cup. There's a wide range of cool drinks, but we always have Bloody's and coffee. Big rut there.

We like the people there. Jim and I are fairly recognizable--he's a big guy and my haircut seems to make me memorable. The folks at Snooze know us now and various staff members stop by and we share the exciting stories of our weeks. We are happy and excited for them when they go skiing or go on vacation to Bali or have beautiful baby girls. A real reviewer would have to be anonymous and objective and have to notice if parsley was ever mis-sprinkled. We are not very objective people.

At the end of March, we made an unexpected trip down to Snooze in the middle of the week after trying to change the password on my Metro computer. it turned out to be a happy accident because Snooze had a few tickets left for their Colorado Rockies Opening Day and Five Year Anniversary Party. We bought two tickets even though we suspected we might be the oldest people there. We were older than most of the folks and probably a lot more interested in the actual baseball game than most of the Snooze guests, but it was incredibly cool to be there.

We took Light Rail downtown and had a cool visit with a couple who had been to spring training in Scottsdale. We picked up some tips about getting around in Arizona since we're doing the spring training thing next year and we all agreed that RTD needs to figure out how to keep the ticket vending machines operating better.

After a brisk walk over to Snooze, we entered and got our hands marked up like I remember from frat parties in college. There were bars in various spots with cool new drink items (I had three of something full of vodka and something not too sweet that I obviously liked a lot) and there were shot stands. I kept wanting a blood orange shot like Jim got, but had three green things on my unsuccessful quest. That was enough of the college life for me. I had plenty of appetizer size pancakes and sausages and hash browns and all sorts of goodies to keep me stable. After a goodly time at Snooze (we even saw one real live wedding proposal), we walked over to the ballpark.

The weather was glorious and the stadium was beautiful. The line by the Helton Burger stand was outrageous and there's a new Italian market back by home plate. It's a gorgeous ballpark. There were tons and tons of people--in and out of the ballpark and it's hard to imagine the amount of liquor consumed just as we walked around the concourses.

This was not a crowd interested in watching baseball. This crowd liked drinking and talking. By the point the game started we were done with drinking and more into the baseball thing. We were unusual in this. We watched the game, wondered why the stat guy never got anyone's batting average calculated accurately, and people watched. A lot of women have great big boobs--more than I remember. It was a bit unsettling. Overall, it was a really good time.

I'm grateful to Snooze for a lot. For the food, for feeding the Rockies before day games, for including us last Friday for the opener, for paying attention to us, for being the right sort of place for us.