La Loma McGregor Square — Restaurant in Denver

I've been a huge fan of La Loma since I moved to Denver many years ago. I was worried that the recent upheaval in the Brinkerhoff family (the owners) would affect the restaurants, so my friend and I headed here to check things out.

This place was originally opened by the Brinkerhoffs as a new, higher-end concept, "Caldero," in the huge McGregor Square complex next to the baseball stadium. We tried it when it first opened and thought the food was excellent.

Mrs. Brinkerhoff was awarded this location in the divorce and immediately reverted to the La Loma name and concept. That was probably a good idea as La Loma is likely to be more appealing to the baseball and bar-hopping crowds attracted to this area.

The Caldero decor has not been touched. You enter via a small door at ground level next to a small, outdoor patio and find yourself in a little bar. There's a huge, sweeping staircase or a stunning, copper-clad elevator to get to the main restaurant on the second floor.

An enormous restaurant space occupies the upper level with an open kitchen and large, curved bar to your left and a huge dining area with many separate spaces to the right, including a large, glassed-in terrace that overlooks the McGregor Square central patio.

The spaces are beautifully decorated and very comfortable with a good mix of booths and tables. The upper bar is in the rear of the left wing, by the kitchen, with a substantial amount of booth and table seating in front of it.

This restaurant is one of the largest in town with seating for hundreds of people. My understanding is that it has been quite unprofitable. It is also hard to find, with a small, somewhat obscure entrance on the side of the building that gives no indication of the scope of the place. You can see the glassed-in terrace by the video screen from the McGregor Square plaza, but you can't access the restaurant from that side.

So, what about the food? I have eaten in various La Loma locations dozens, if not hundreds of times. This was, without a doubt, the best La Loma meal I have ever had. Everything was absolutely fantastic.

We started with house margaritas. You can optionally add one of five fruit flavors and we chose peach. These were fresh, delicious, and perfectly balanced. An excellent start to the meal along with the usual chips and salsa--also excellent with a nice bite and deep flavors.

I ordered my usual, the Anniversary Plate: a stuffed sopapilla, chile relleno, and a chicken flauta with rice, guacamole, sour cream, and La Loma's special Hatch green chile. My friend went with the Chile Rellenos: roasted Anaheim green chiles with cheese, fried in a crispy shell, rice, beans, and a crock of the Hatch green chile.

First of all, the portion size, unlike most restaurants these days, has exploded. The server was shocked that we ordered so much food--so were we when the enormous platters were presented. Each item was much larger than on meals past, along with generous portions of the side items.

The green chile was amazing, a perfect consistency including large chunks of very tender pork and an intense depth of flavor. Definitely the best I have ever tasted. Each item was perfectly prepared and very flavorful. My friend agreed that this was food of exceptional quality, prepared with care. I ordered a side of guacamole which was also a generous portion, perfectly seasoned, and delicious.

Our server seemed very new and somewhat tentative. He made several mistakes on our order. However, he immediately apologized, quickly corrected the issues, and gave us a substantial credit on the bill. The floor manager stopped by at once, without being asked, to ensure that everything was OK. This is extremely gracious service and hard to find these days.

We enjoyed our experience tremendously and left staggering with a huge bag of leftovers. Even if you're already a La Loma fan, this location definitely...

Wish I could do 0 stars for service. We had a reservation for 1pm. Waited at the hostess table 10 minutes with a bunch of other folks until someone would seat us. We ended up just roaming the restaurant looking for our friends. Waited over 25 minutes for drinks, got queso delivered with no chips. Asked for chips 3 times. Drinks finally came after almost 45 minutes. Ordered food but it never came. Waited almost 1.5 hours and was told 3 other orders were still ahead of us. Only about 10 tables being used in the entire place. Almost every unused table hadn’t been bussed. Was very messy. The entire bar was full of dirties. Yet at least 7 employees and the manager Sam just chilling behind the counter chatting away. Food still never came. Our server was absent and we had to ask other servers to have her visit our full table. I eventually went to the bar and ordered drinks from them. After waiting longer we Finally canceled the order at 230 as we had to be to the Savannah bananas game at 3. The server told us quote “we didn’t know the bananas were in town this week, we weren’t prepared”. Funny because there’s 4 million people on the waiting list. I guess they weren’t aware of such a large event so close lol. Considering Coors field is literally a block away that’s totally unacceptable to me. Was told by the wait staff they would comp the meal and then was handed a tab with just the food removed, which never was received. No apologies or any acknowledgment of a problem. Asked to speak with the manager, Sam, and he walked by us 4 times, over a 15 minute period, never once acknowledging our presence. Had we been younger we totally would have just left. I actually had to confront him and ask for his attention to address this issue. Dude was lacking confidence to say the least. Wouldn’t make eye contact and just shrugged off my issues with the service. After all this ended up getting a slight discount off our tab but to be honest this was one of the worst dining experiences I’ve ever had. La Loma is great, just not the downtown location. Save yourself the headache and visit...

We took advantage of their half price food menu for their rebrand as la loma and we tried most items in their menu by visiting 6 times. Most wait staff in different days were great, we only encountered one poorly trained waiter but that can slip.

Steak fajita: 5/5. We also ordered mixed fajita and ultimate fajita as well as mixed fajita for 2. First of, fajita for 2 is almost the same price as getting two separate but only comes with similar size sides so if you wanna order for 2, order them separately. For mixed fajita, you only get 2 shrimps so I dont recommend if. For ultimate, ribs were pork rib. They were alright but nothing beats their super tasty steak meat. We got it 5 different times and only once our medium was overcooked. I guess if you add steak to anything like what we added it to our quesedilla order, it elevated it.

Mexican burger 4.5/5: the patty was super juicy. Keep in mind this is not a classic burger. Chech photos.

Torta 4/5: was really good, protein portion was small

House salad 4/5:passion fruit vinegrette was a nice touch

Texas plate 3.5/5: nothing special

Carne guisada 3/5: normal

All the brisket orders 2.5/5: it is not brisket it is just shredded beef and not seasoned properly, we tried both tacos and burrito

Sides are in general impressive. Chille verde was also yummy. Guacamole is overpriced.

Tacos 2/5: they were not good! Dry and simple. We asked for some sort of wet ingredients and were told sarcastically that have you had tacos before? I love how a random waiter in Denver thinks she knows...