Bohemian Burbs: Moe’s Original Bar B Que
Englewood rolls up a winner
Geoff Maddaford
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Say the words “South Broadway” to most nightlife-loving Denverites and their minds immediately jump to the venues, boutiques, and high-end restaurants just south of the Capitol. Others might picture Broadway’s Antique Row, where Blinky The Clown—the former kid’s show host whose Fun Club went off the air years ago—hawked heirlooms and Postwar wares until he closed up shop last month. Further down the drag is the lovingly restored Gothic Theatre, where the city’s music fans have witnessed everyone from Nirvana to Wilson Pickett. And next to the Gothic, at the northernmost top of suburban Englewood, sits the unlikely hotspot Moe's Original Bar B Que.
Englewood’s stretch of Broadway is predominantly blue collar, despite the constant ebb and flow of Gothic concertgoers. Accordingly, Moe’s feels both at home and slightly out of place in the neighborhood. City-dwellers and single-family homeowners alike come together under its roof to eat, see bands, play video games—and, of course, bowl. In 2007 the Gothic’s owner Steve Schalk bought Sport Bowl Lanes & Billiards—a grungy, eight-lane alley with a reputedly shady history—and turned it into the Falcon Bowl, a retro-science-fiction-themed venue and fun center that lasted just a few months before being reborn as Moe’s.
The facelift was mostly aimed at the kitchen; while the Falcon’s menu focused on slightly fancier versions of diner classics, the fare at Moe’s is, as you might guess, unapologetically barbecue-centric. The new kitchen has a simple menu that features just the sort of comfort food bowlers want to eat while contemplating a 7-10 split. Chicken, turkey, and chicken of the smoked or fried variety are basted in a tangy, homemade sauce just this side of sweet—and made available in a sandwich or on a platter. But Moe’s doesn’t disappoint the barbeque fundamentalists who know that real barbeque means one thing: pulled pork (so called because it’s torn apart by hand rather then being sliced like, say, beef brisket). And speaking of brisket, Moe’s is so confident in the ability of its pulled pork to please patrons that the kitchen doesn’t even offer brisket as an alternative.
On weekend afternoons, the establishment feels quintessentially suburban, with blues coming out of the loudspeaker and Englewood townies manning the lanes and pinball machines. But just around from the shoe-rental stand is a full bar and a spiffy, mid-sized, live-music venue, where Schalk continues his dedication to booking up-and-coming acts from Denver and beyond. And if that’s not enough to get city snobs to venture outside their urban comfort zone, the smell of that barbecue ought to yank them in.
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