Welton Street Cafe — Restaurant in Denver

HAD TO SHORTEN MY LONG REVIEW FOR GOOGLE: Ok so I normally don’t take time to complete reviews for restaurants. However I was compelled to leave a review after my disappointing experience at Welton Street Cafe. I am visiting Denver and wanted to support a black owned restaurant. I came across Welton Street Cafe in my google search and decided to check it out. I arrived alone on Sunday 5/4/25 around 2pm. The hostess advised me there were no tables available. I could see it was busy (85% of tables had customers). I advised her I don’t mind waiting. The hostess said it would be an hour wait. An hour wait?!?!? Now mind you there are several tables open but apparently they were reserved. I asked if I can sit at the bar. The hostess advised the open seats at the bar were reserved too. I then asked if I could order food to go. She had to check to see if they could accept “to go orders”. By this point my blood started boiling as I really wanted to support a black owned restaurant but I find that I always get let down with poor service. So the hostess comes back and says she can seat me. I said thank you and explained I was visiting from out of town and really wanted to support the restaurant. The hostess seats me and proceeds to take my order. Being that she seated me at a table for 6 and sat down WITH ME to take my order, I reconfirmed with her I was able to dine at this table. She said no, I am just taking your to go order.

Here is my feedback of my meal. The smothered pork were okay despite being lukewarm. The mac and cheese; they should be ashamed of. It appears they made it with American cheese and maybe a little Velveeta? I cook at home so I can decipher ingredients in a dish. No mild cheddar, no sharp cheddar, no Muenster cheese etc.. It was horrible. I would say maybe a step above the Kraft mac and cheese you buy in the box. The collard greens, which were vegetarian (no meat), were salty.

So after the poor service, the long delay for my to go order, the drink that really should have been called a shot… after all that, the food was not good. I will never patron this restaurant EVER AGAIN IN LIFE!

However I don’t like to leave a bad review without at least giving some recommendations to the owners whom I hope read this:

Your entire team needs training on a customer service. While no one was rude, the employees I encountered clearly do not understand what stellar customer service entails (meeting customer needs and wants). I don’t blame them. I blame management.

Customers should be able to order anything they want from the menu “to go”. No excuses! They had sturdy to go trays that could have been used for the side of yams I wanted. The restaurant is missing out on additional revenue with this.

Bartender needs additional training on how to properly make drinks. He could have at least added ice to give the illusion my cup was full rather than serve me a drink that was 3/4th full with ice already in it.

On a positive note, I will say the restaurant had nice decor and felt inviting despite my experience. I encourage anyone that reads this to give this restaurant a try and judge based on your own experience.

My hope is that the owners make significant improvements. I realize Sunday is a busy day for this restaurant. But I know they are capable of doing better.

And no, I did not ask for management before I left. I didn’t want to waste my breath. Clearly one of the owners husband understood where I was coming from. Hopefully he relays my feedback...

Holy moly.....we are FULL! SO..MUCH..FOOD. And even though much of it was fried, it is delicious. My husband and I couldn't decide what to get so we just ordered two big, albeit different, dinners and proceeded to eat off of each other's plates. That's the beauty of being married. I also mentioned to my husband during this meal that if this had been our first date, he probably wouldn't have asked me out again. I was being a serious glutton.

Between the two of us, we had hot wings, fried chicken, mac and cheese, hush puppies, fry bread, and mashed potatoes and gravy. It was like Sunday dinner back when we were kids. In fact, my husband said several times, I haven't had fried chicken this good since my mom was alive. That is a compliment of the highest order. Trust me.

The hot wings were HOT in my opinion and I mentioned that to the waitress, who shrugged and said "Really? I don't think they're that hot but I like really spicy things." So I guess you'll have to use your own palette to determine if these are hot or not. Regardless, they beat BWW by a mile.

And that fry bread, oh good lord.

I'm only giving them four stars because the place itself is nothing fancy (there were four vacuum cleaners sitting next to one of the tables) and the service is SLOW, with a capital S. They had one waitress on a Friday night. Tons of tables open but we still waited in a chair next to the dining room for someone to seat us for about 15 minutes. We ordered right away but the waitress told us that fried chicken takes quite awhile to cook (25-30 minutes). We were actually okay with that since it was date night for us but then that 25-30 minutes turned into 50 minutes. And a table that was seated after us received their meals before us. We didn't mention this but the waitress scurried right over to tell us that the "reason" they got their meals before us was because they ordered catfish and evidently catfish doesn't take as long to cook, so the cook put the catfish in the fryer first. (?????) Oh, well. The food itself....once we got...

This was my first time there today… great thing even though you have to have reservations- we were lucky to get a cancelled reservation and our wait was only 30 minutes on a Sunday after church. The manager/part owner Bethema was amazing! The customer experience with her was great. She explained everything about the new restaurant and that it has only been opened for 99 days and how you have to go online to make reservations- especially on the weekends. They don’t answer the phone during busy hours. She told me how the family runs the business and I thought that was pretty cool. I really appreciated that coming from her because she didn’t have too! What made it better she gave me “Liitle Black Book” so much of what I need in my work I do in Denver.

My husband and mother-love enjoyed their food- he had the fried chicken dinner with two sides and cornbread - his sides: Mac n cheese and yams. He said the cornbread was dry. My mother in love ordered the whiting fish and fried Okra- she said they fried the okra perfect.

Now my order - a cheese burger and fries - dad thing my burger was cool temperature when it came out and my fries hot. Maybe my burger had been done for a minute- but it was eatable.

Downside - at 12 noon - the waitress announced how they only had one pork chop left, no chicken for the fried chicken sandwich, no black beans and rice, only one piece of pound cake left… just interesting. But I appreciate the warning.

Later found out the only person who makes the dessert was out sick and that they sold an entire pound cake the night before 🤨.

Nonetheless. I appreciate how black businesses in Denver are trying to survive in this world and a lot of white people were in the place of business!

Suggestion: don’t sell the last pound cake if you know you baker is sick, have more pork chops available and find a way to have the burgers come out hot.

Shout out to the family of Welton Cafe for doing your dream… the space is bright and welcoming and the bathrooms...