Sputnik — Restaurant in Denver

Order: Sputnik Soul Bowl Price: $11 Pros: Good food, fair prices, a TON of vegan options, open late (apparently not a normal thing in Denver) Cons: Not a large amount of seating, fairly loud “bar style” atmosphere

Thoughts: So we decided to stop in at Sputnik for a very unusual series of reasons. My siblings and I had all just gotten off a plane after flying for 5+ hours and we were about to begin a 6 hour drive to Thermopolis Wyoming and we were absolutely starving. The big problem was most places are not open at 10pm in Denver Colorado. So, while our list of options was tragically small Sputnik did seem like a good place to get some food and, to top it all off, one of my siblings is a vegan and Sputnik had vegan options, so that pretty much settled it.

Seeing as Sputnik was listed as a bar in addition to being a restaurant I honestly wasn't expecting a lot. Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of food that came out. I ordered the sputnik soul bowl, which is essentially a bowl of mashed potatoes with fried chicken, greens, kale, corn, red onions, and then topped with gravy. The chicken was very well done the mashed potatoes were not overly dry, everything was seasoned very well. Everybody at the table seemed to be genuinely happy with their order. In my experience it's very rare for a restaurant to get both vegan and non-vegan dishes right but sputnik seem to deliver on both fronts. You could essentially order any dish and they would substitute the meat options in it for a vegan alternative.

I will say the atmosphere was much more like a bar then it was a restaurant. There were enough tables for people to sit down at but the music was very loud, there plenty of people talking at a pretty loud column, and most people were congregating around the bar. This doesn't detract from how good the food was, it's just something to keep in mind when you're considering if you want to eat here tonight.

They did also have a coffee bar, which I was highly interested in, since I was about to drive six hours and it was already 10 o'clock at night, so I ordered a cappuccino. While the price was very reasonable for what you got I wouldn't go out of my way to get coffee from Sputnik. It was good, but not amazing, and if you have read any of my other food reviews you will know that I am incredibly snobbish when it comes to coffee.

While I don't imagine that I will be in the Denver area anytime soon, if I was, I would definitely keep Sputnik in mind as a good place to eat, and a decent place to get a cup of coffee. Especially...

Wound up here Thursday night after a show at the Mayan. My daughter and her boyfriend are vegan. I, however, am not! So Sputnik seemed like a good compromise.

The inside of the place is on the dark side. There is a large bar and several tables and booths. When we walked in, wasn't exactly sure what to do. We waited for a while before the bartender told us to find a seat of we could. There were several tables open but none were clean. After a bit we just decided to sit at a dirty table and wait for someone to stop by. Maybe that is why the interior lighting is dim.

Eventually a server did stop by. He apologized for the wait and cleaned the table as best he could. He took our drink order and brought us some water.

We placed our food order and, much to our surprise, it was delivered rather quickly. My daughter ordered the White BBQ fake chicken. She was very pleased with her vegan sandwich!

I ordered the real Cubano. It had pulled pork, ham, pickles and a special sauce, served on a crispy hero roll. I must admit, it was rather good and the portion was a nice size.

Here's where it gets interesting. My daughter's boyfriend order the vegan Cubano. As he is in the middle of eatting his sandwich, which, I might add, looks no different from my Cubano, he starts to freak out about the slice of vegan ham on his sandwhich. He then begins to pick the sandwhich apart inspecting the slice of ham. He then gives a piece to my daughter to see if maybe it is "real" ham rather than vegan ham.

After going back and forth for a little bit, they both came to the same conclusion that it WAS vegan ham!!

My daughter and her boyfriend invite me to their home for dinner often. I do not care what they decide to cook for me, whether it is spaghetti and meatballs, pepperoni and sausage pizza or even mac and cheese. My only request is that they do NOT tell me what the ingredients are! Many of their dishes DO taste of what they say they are! So, you only imagine me seeing a vegan ham that can pass for the real thing! I personally thought this was a resounding victory for vegans all over! GREAT JOB SPUTNIK!

I later came to learn, however, that the whole "is it vegan or is it not?" questioning left him all freaky and he wound up not enjoying the rest of his sandwhich, which was a bummer!

But, the happy ending is that he is now on a quest to replicate the life-like vegan ham he got at Sputniksat...

The review I have for this place is so back and forth. So I'll start with the good: The food was fantastic. French fries were seasoned great, smoked tempeh blew my mind, I was in complete awe. The brussel sprouts were fantastic as well and don't even get me started on the dips. Delish. The man with glasses and brown hair was a sweetheart with our food. As for the dishware, it could've been cleaner. The music was so loud I couldn't hear myself think but the overall ambiance was great, cute little retro diner. Ive been waiting to come to this place for some time now. But.. the costumer service was TERRIBLE. My friend and I sat at the bar, upon entering the restaurant, a waitress told us it was self seating. It was packed so we sat at the bar. Front and center mind you... Took 15 minutes for someone to bring us a menu. Although both people behind the bar saw us sit, and made it a point to serve everyone around us. A tall blonde man took our first order. The way he leaned in towards us was fairly odd to me but I didn't think much of it. He walked off and we sat there for another 20 minutes until a white woman with turquoise hair approached us and asked if we were ready to order. I didn't want to mix up any orders so I began explaining to her that we had placed a previous order that wasn't complete, and that I wanted to add to it ... This woman looked me dead in the eye, gave me the dirtiest look and said "That's not important. what do you want?" I gave her the rest of my order and she looked at me again and said, "there's nothing you guys want to drink?" I said no, I was just interested in the food and once again she gave me another dirty look and walked away. My friend and I stared at eachother in pure disbelief. It was so unnecessary. Was it because I sat at the bar and didn't order a drink? How can that be when the waitresses specifically said sit anywhere and there was no booths open. What, were we supposed to eat on the floor?? That was enough for me to be completely turned off from this place. The food was fantastic so illl more than likely continue to order food from here but illl never actually eat at the physical restaurant. Such a shame too.. I was really looking...