First visit: May 2022
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 2 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 blew 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 comments:
I tried to give this place a go last summer when I was through there (looking for land). But, they were closed that day. I think I ended up over at the Silver West Feed Store instead. It was pretty good. If you haven't tried the (ok, this is a mouthful) Silver Cliff Mountain Inn & Restaurant aka Willie's for breakfast, give it a go. They aren't open every day and they seem to only be open for breakfast and lunch on the days they ARE open. Good mom & pop style cooking and BIG pancakes (I believe I overheard a lady calling them "table-cakes! Are you SURE you want 2 of those???") if you're into that sort of thing. :)
Thanks Michael for the comments! Big pancakes sounds great. We'll have to try them out sometime.
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