Chappy's Bar & Grill ~ Westcliffe, Colorado

Latest visit: Feb 2025

First visit: May 2022

And we are back in our favorite Colorado mountain town destination of Westcliffe. A little later than our normal winter visit since we've had quite a bit of weather early this year plus the Mexico wedding trip threw a wrench into all of our plans.

This is only our second visit to Chappy's, even though I thoroughly enjoyed our original time here. However they've made some changes including their opening hours, and oftentimes we like eating earlier. So we ventured to other places in town. Now that I'm retired, our schedule is more flexible. Like going on a Tuesday instead of the weekend. And what a beautiful day it was, with temperatures in the 60s. In late February, that's crazy.

We arrived around Noon and were both starving. We ate a little bit at home after our morning run, but it's only going to last so long. Mrs. RJG has really been in the mood for burgers of late, so Chappy's rose high on the list, and they're open! Hooray. Fortunately she had forgotten her last experience with the undercooked meat (in her estimation anyway).

This time she ordered the Mushroom Burger (top) and I had the Southwestern. Both had cheese. The latter includes a homemade chipotle sauce + a homemade salsa as the topping. We both ordered them cooked well done. And.... YES it was cooked perfectly. The fries were super hot temperature, as was the burger. Excellent flavor and you could really taste the meat. The red sauce there is the "Bite Me" concoction, which we both used to dip the fries in. Excellent cayenne based Buffalo Wing sauce essentially. 

Heck, they even were playing country music (see below for reference)! And they also have an extensive selection of beers from an excellent craft brewer northern Colorado called Berthoud. We didn't try any on this visit since we had dessert plans, like usual while in Westcliffe. Did they take my review below to heart?

It was a great visit, and Chappy's now enters the RJG Rotation. 

---original 5/14/22 review

Mrs. RJG and I have been coming to Westcliffe since about 2000 or so when we had our first house in Parker (Denver area for my DFW readers). It's a stunningly beautiful place sitting between two mountain ranges, most prominently the Sangre de Cristo's. I encourage you to look at Google images to get an idea. And we had a wonderful weather day just like those photos show. Westcliffe became a home-away-from-home during the pandemic years, as we would make the near two hour drive over and picnic in the park while looking at the mountains. Last year we did have a dessert at one place that will be the subject of my next post. But we haven't eaten at a proper restaurant in the area in many years, the last time was in Silver Cliff, which is the town right before Westcliffe.

And this gets us to Chappy's. A very welcoming place on the main downtown drag, and the decor has been updated to modern sensibilities. We grabbed a circular table with bar stool seating and took in the environs. It's an open kitchen and you can watch the cooks charbroil the burger and hand cut the fries. They were in a good mood on this day and that's always a positive sign. The music was no bueno though. Modern dance-y pop music. Give me some old time 50s and 60s country (or western swing) music! It so goes with the wood paneled interior. Their tap selection is fairly basic with a couple of mainstream crafts, so we stuck with water, knowing ice cream was coming later. Chappy's states that you go there for their burgers, so that's what we settled on too. I had the "Bite Me" Burger (lol) which is their spicy concoction topped with jalapeno's, green chili, pepper jack cheese, and Bite Me sauce, which looks and tasted like a spicy variation of a buffalo sauce. I went with a cup of red chili on the side, and that's what I started with. It's a very meaty and garlicky blend with cheese and onions, all but guaranteed to keep people away from you the rest of the day. And it was temperature hot - hooray! Mrs. RJG went with the All-American classic with fries. And she started with the latter, and they're fantastic (I snuck a couple away too). Oh wow - this place is great! Or so I thought. I started in on my big ol' messy hamburger and loved it. Cooked to perfection and filled with spicy goodness. All we now need is for Mrs. RJG to love her burger and we have a home run. Toasted bun - already in the win column. And then...awwww.... crap. They didn't cook it well done. You all know now how she gets when this happens. "It's OK, I'll eat it". Ah jeez - just send it back. NOPE! It was medium to medium rare. A big miss really. Fortunately my burger was cooked more like medium well, and because the sauce was blocked from the meat, it was perfectly dry. So we swapped out. Better, but still she wasn't happy (mine wasn't well done either, even though I asked for it that way in a move of solidarity). I enjoyed her patty and finished my original burger patty as well. lol. She really did like the fries and the ambience, but when the burger isn't well done, a frown emerges. I always tell her to get the grilled cheese...

I'm still rating it very high, and will try to arm-twist her back next time we come for lunch.

5/14/22 (new entry); 2/25/25