Cherry Cricket - Downtown — Restaurant in Denver

Finally, I was able to try this place after hearing about the burgers for years and was not disappointed until the end of the meal, which I talked about at the end of the review. Beyond that, it's a beautiful location across the street from Coors Field. It's a classic contemporary bar/restaurant. The beautiful 360° cylindrical fish tank when you walk in is an instant eye-catching display! A raised bar area with tables and street view seating was very nice. An addition seating area next to a nice arcade area is a fun addition. The menu has build your own burgers and some other classic bar food choices. The servers and manager were extremely nice and helpful! We started with drinks and chips and queso($9). The Witches Brew($11) is a tequila and grapefruit drink that was very tequila heavy and also very good! The Samoa($15) is a coconut rum based vanilla shake with chocolate and Carmel swirls. It's also very good!! Very rich! The queso is meh. Nothing really special, kind of taste like it's just jarred pre-made queso. Chips were fresh and crispy, though, with a good amount of salt. Next, we had the 983 Big Cheesy burger($16.50), which was loaded with mac-n-cheese, jalapeno cheddar cheetos, a fried poblano pepper, bacon jam and American cheese! One of their most popular burgers for a reason!!! It's delicious! The right amount of spicy, not too hot, and the jam is a sweet little backer for all the flavor! I ordered it cooked medium and it was perfect! A rare feat for restaurants these days, it seems! We also had the Vera Cruz burger($16.50). A 1/2lb patty topped with bacon jam, crispy onions, pepper jack cheese, and a garlic aioli. It was a lot more savory than the 983 burger. It was also cooked perfectly! 👌 It was a very good burger as well but was taken over the edge when adding some BBQ sauce to it!! We also had the Frings - a combo of onion rings and fries($8.50) and a half order of fries($4). Both the onion rings and fries were awesome! The onion rings were perfectly battered and cooked! Crispy and delicious! The seasoned fries are cooked beautifully, too! Crispy and flavorful, and neither the fries or rings come out overly greasy!! We also had The build your own burger with fried onions, gluten free bun, cheese, and bacon, came out to $20, and a half order of steak fries was $4.50 as well. The burger was very good, the GF bun was meh... kind of dry and fell apart, but what can you do. A couple of negatives that I came across is that they charge $1 for a small little side of BBQ sauce, $.75 for a little side of Honey Mustard, and they also charge a 3.5% service charge, which they say is to provide increased wages for non tipped employees. I hate this! When they bring you the check, they just come and tell you the total and don't give you a breakdown or tell you about the surcharge until after you pay and request a receipt! To me, this is kind of deceitful and sneaky. I'm not a fan of surcharges and especially ones that are hidden from you! It was a disappointing ending to an otherwise great meal. 2-cocktails, an appetizer, 3 burgers and fries came out to $110. An expensive lunch for sure, but the food...

This was our second time at The Cherry Cricket, but the first time at this location. The other time was at the Cherry Creek location. ...Wish we had gone back to Cherry Creek tonight.

First of all, I ordered the same burger (Chile Relleno Burger), that I'd had at the other Cherry Cricket, and while my burger tonight was good, it was not the flavor/texture bomb that was served up at the original location. It lost some of its flavor because it was a bit cold, (more on that later). But that was ok, it was, as I said, still pretty good, and not at all the reason that I find my self writing this review.

In fact, all would have been fine, totally acceptable, and very ok, had it not been for our server, Mariah T, who made our very ok experience very uncomfortable. Seemingly on purpose.

She wasn't too hospitable when we first sat down. Why? ...Who knows? Then my husband ordered a soup as an appetizer, and when about 20 minutes had passed and still no soup, I politely asked her if she could bring him the soup before the main course and she literally ROLLED HER EYES, and later brought out a mammoth bowl of soup as if anyone would want/need a bowl of soup that big AND a half pound burger. ...Unless I guess if you wanted to upcharge a cup of soup so that your tip would be based on a (marginally), higher tab. But seriously, how SMALL do you have to be to do something like that? She also charged us for the dipping sauce for the onion rings. And it wasn't the money - believe me - a buck fifty is not going to change my life - but it's the F You attitude we got from this person that was really galling.

The burgers when they arrived, were (of course), kinda cold, since she had put everything in to come out at once, and the rest of the meal just sat there getting colder while my husband ate the soup.

Then, for the F You finale, she hands my husband the hand held unit for the charge card, and she's already put in a tip for 22%. Which my husband gamely signed for(!) (This, I believe, is where an eye roll would've actually been appropriate!)

Had she handed it to me, I would have subtracted 20% of that 22%, which still would have been 2% more than she deserved.

I understand the unemployment rate here in Denver is pretty low, so maybe it's slim pick'ens out there on the wait staff... but still, I think the historic Cherry Cricket can do better than someone like this person pooping all over...

I’ve been to this location many times. We brought a homeless person with us to treat her to dinner. The manager, Jason, later told us they don’t want her clientele. Waiter ignored our table and the manger told us he “took over our table” and told our waiter to not stop by to check on us.

Wow. I now appreciate the discrimination against homeless people and I experienced just a very small sample of what it might be like to be treated as an unwelcome member of society. A shame. They put us in the corner, which I can understand, yet they still treated us horribly. When Jason learned I was writing a Google review while he was explaining our treatment, he got up from the table and sarcastically said “thanks” and left. I guess when he learned I was writing a review his concern diminished. He came back a bit later to talk to us a bit more which I did appreciate.

Bottom line, they clearly didn’t like having a homeless/unhoused/experiencing homelessness person here and as a privileged person, I have now experienced some discrimination. I have a lot to think about. I was here three weeks ago with my wife,and the service was great. Hmm. Something to think about. What makes me said is the homeless/unhoused person left our table early because she was more attuned to the situation and left to “go the bathroom” and never returned. I feel awful. Maybe I should have done something more?

I appreciate the sensitivity of having someone like this as a dinner guest but why not help facilitate an act of kindness?

As we were getting ready to leave the restaurant, an employee named Caesar told us “don’t get the spelling of my name wrong. You’ve been nothing but trouble but trouble so you need to leave.” He sarcastically spelled out his last name. Wow. Ok. I hope I satisfied his request and spelled his name correctly.

Homelessness/unhoused/experiencing homelessness people and kind acts are apparently not welcome here.

We certainly could have worked with management if they had been more forthcoming.

At the end of the day and main point of this review, it’s sad an act of kindness and human connection ended...