Alamo Drafthouse Will Open This Year in Downtown Westminster

REVITALIZATION NEWS: Downtown Westminster is starting to take shape at the former mall location, where an Alamo Drafthouse is among the first of the new businesses slated to open starting this year. The Denver Post reports that the third Drafthouse in the metro area will open by late 2018 at 88th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard. The Austin-based cinema is known for its full bar and food menus. Joining the theater will be apartments and condos, restaurants, offices, and retail space, including Denver-based Marczyk Fine Foods. Up to 100 acres could be developed for the project. [Denver Post]

KITCHEN ROMANCE NEWS: Bremen’s Wine & Tap in LoHi has been getting (worthy) buzz for its new head chef and her first food menus. Behind the scenes, though, chef Isabel Ranney has employed her husband, chef Jason Linam (formerly White Pie and Frasca), as second in command in the kitchen. “It was an easy decision for us — she had a need for a sous chef, and she couldn’t find the right fit. We knew I could do it,” Linam tells 303 Magazine. The couple say they complement each other in skillsets — she in herbalism and he in pastas and breads — and they wrote the new menu at Bremen’s together. [303]

CAN’T GET ENOUGH TOP CHEF NEWS: Five episodes into the Colorado season of the popular Bravo cooking show comes news that judge Gail Simmons will be making a pair of appearances cooking for Denverites later this month. The author of a new cookbook will come to Frasca in Boulder on January 25 and to Le Creuset in Cherry Creek on January 27. Her first, Boulder, appearance will entail a multi-course menu, 5280 writes, with dishes from Simmons’ new book. Fans who can’t make it to either event can still watch Simmons on the “Restaurant Wars” episode airing at the end of the month. [5280]

THE BEST SANDWICH NEWS: Take a break this a.m., and dive into a history and survey of the banh mi in Denver. Westword writes about the roots of this beloved sandwich as a street food in Vietnam and its arrival and many iterations across the Colorado capital. Find out how Vinh Xuong Bakery is making one close to the traditional, and how places from Mercantile to Vital Root are doing spinoffs on a classic. [Westword]