09 03 25 Colo Restaurant Association’s Denise Mickelsen on the Food and Wine Festival

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Denver Food Wine Festival Week. The culinary event of
the year celebrates the city's favorite eats while also benefiting
the workers at the heart of communities across Colorado.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
The grand tasting event takes place this Saturday at the
Tivli quald on the Area campus, with several other days
of Colorado Food, drink and entertainment leading up to the festival.
And joining us on the KWA Common Spirit Health Hotline
is Denise Micholson, Vice president of Communications for the Colorado
Restaurant Association and Foundation. Denise, thank you so much for
your time. As always, I've been to the Food and

(00:29):
Wine Festival a couple of years now, absolutely love It's
one of my favorite events every year. But for those
who have not gone, give us your elevator pitch. What
makes this festival on Saturday so special?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
You're making me smile. It is the biggest fundraiser of
the year, first of all for the Colorado Restaurant Foundation,
which supports restaurant workers across the state. But even more
important than that, it is just an e history avaganza
essentially of everything you could possibly want to eat or drink.
We like to say that with fifty plus restaurants there,
andre of wines and spirits from southern glaciers. You essentially

(01:03):
could have plan out your entire year of dining. You know,
you get a bite from a restaurant, you love it,
and then you add that to your list, and then
you have fifty restaurants to go to over the course
of the year. And they're across the state. It's not
just Denver. We're celebrating all of Colorado.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Before we get into some of the details of some
of the other opportunities and things, Denise fill in the
blank for me. The state of Denver and Colorado's restaurant
industry is blank.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Challenging and a little bit scary. We are just hearing
from operators daily, I mean every single day about how
hard it is right now. You know, costs never went
down after the pandemic. Many prices can only go up
so much or people get really mad and they stop
going out to eat. And actually we're seeing people are
not going out to eat nearly as much as they

(01:48):
once did. People are drinking less alcohol, and every single
one of those things. Those factors all compound to make
it very challenging to run, especially a full service restaurant.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Right now when it comes to that, Denise, do you
feel like it's more challenging to get these restaurants to
participate or be part of the festivals the food truck
competition that we'll get to as well, because of the
financial strain or difficulty that they have, or is it
an opportunity where they're like, we want to show what
we have to offer to you know, Denver Rights into

(02:20):
Colorado's in order to get them back to the restaurants.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
You know, it's the next of both. There are definitely
some teams that are really pushing themselves to be a
firm of the festival because you know, there's about twenty
five hundred people at the grand tasting, so you have
to prepare a lot of food, and you need to
leave your restaurant, you need to come to the festival
all Saturday afternoon before possibly a dinner a busy dinner service.
So some people are really stretching themselves. We had a

(02:45):
few restaurants that had to pull out after they said
they would be a part of it because they didn't
have enough staff members. I mean, teams are operating extremely
lean right now. You know, if you cannot afford if
you're worried about making it through the year. You can't
really have extra staff on hand, and so you certainly
can't do an off plate festival. So we were very lucky.
We have an incredible lineup of restaurants who are going

(03:07):
to be with us this year, but it's not easy
for everyone to participate in things like this.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Before we get into that, let's talk about the Shake
and Break showdown I guess is taking place tomorrow evening.
Explain that if you would.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Denise it, sure is. That is our food truck and
cocktail competition. Everything takes place at the Tivoli Quad. We
have eight incredible food trucks who will be competing for
best Food Truck. We have twelve incredible bartenders who will
be competing for best Cocktail. We set it up like
a street food festival with a bartender and then a truck,
and then a bartender.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
And a truck.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
It's really fun. The weather looks like it's going to
be gorgeous, a really beautiful night out in.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Denver, and it's a great opportunity because I really had
the options of seeing some of the food trucks that
now when I see them around Denver, I'm like, oh,
I tried it at Shake and Break. It's so good
we got to try it again. So it's a great opportunity.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
We have some real killers. Let me tell you, You've
got food, Indian food, Mexican, We've got a smash Burgers,
everything you can want.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
And people really compete in order to get those voter
favorites and to get those tokens from people, Denise, real
quick and wrapping up with you, talk about some of
the auction items that are taking place as well. If
people cannot attend some of these events, how else could
they give back to this fundraiser.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Oh yeah, that's a great point. So at denverfoodline dot
com you can find all the tickets for all the events,
including the grand tasting on Saturday, which there are still
tickets for. But also you can make a donation to
the Colorado Restaurant Foundation if you like, again to support
those restaurant workers. And we have this dine out auction
that compete. Sorry completed last week, but on Friday nights

(04:40):
there are going to be lucky winning vetters dining around
town everywhere from Annette and Aurora to Frasco Foon Wine
Out in Boulder.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Denise Michelson. I always appreciate you coming on with us. Thank
you so much, thank you very much. Vice president of
Communications for the Colorado Restaurant Association. It is association and
foundation I should say is Denise Michaelson.