Empanada Express Grill

I guess I’ll give them an extra star for paying attention to my review (or the email I sent them) and they have updated their hours on their website for the Colfax location. IMO — it’s bad business to have such confusing hours:
«Colfax Loaction (their spelling): Closed on Sunday & Monday; 11 — 8 Wed-​Friday; 10.30 — 3.30 Tue &Sat.» — per their updated website. Really?
It’d be easier to win the lotto than to find them open. Pretty hard to build a business with these seemingly nonsensical hours. Doesn’t sound like they are very committed to this location which is too bad because I’ve heard good things about their other spots. By the way, they’ve only updated the hours for their homepage. If you drill down to the menu for the Colfax location they still say 10:30 — 8:00 seven days a week (not).

Just adding my 5 stars: delicious food and great service!

We’re lucky to have a place like this nearby, for most of the best restaurants in Denver are pretty far from the center. Although the city does have a popular arepa food truck, this gem was empty come lunch yesterday. And I was happy about that because I had work in forty minutes.
The woman who seemed to run both the front and back of the house (only possible with very few customers) was cheerful, efficient, and sweet. In addition to tasty South American fare, her iced tea hit this Southern girl’s heart.
Although I wanted to try the tostones, served in a way that was new to me (I know only the Cuban treatment), we ordered one of the empanada plates and one arepa plate. They both came with beans and rice and two delectable sauces, the green one similar to a Peruvian aji sauce with onion, parsley/​cilantro, and citrus.
The beef and cheese empanada was awesome with a different crust than I’d had before, more similar to a calzone than the flakey dough I’ve experienced. The beans were made from scratch, served with cheese, and the yellow rice had a very long grain, like fine basmati she had soaked.
The arepa was excellent, filled with a shredded chicken salad and half an avocado.
I wish they had a few more offerings in terms of filling, but seeing how empty this place is justifies the limited menu.
And despite the location, price point, and everything else, the atmosphere and art were good.
This place is a new favorite.

Good gracious! We got the dozen mini-​empanadas and some tostones and flan. The empanadas are soft, pillowy, and incredibly delicious. I love love love the cheese they use abundantly on everything.
Maybe the best flan I’ve ever had? Creamy as heck and then topped with toasted coconut for an amazing textural contrast. What a spot!

This place has all the characteristics of a high quality ethnic eatery: lower budget location, family run, and high quality ethnic food. Fue fantastico.

On my home from work one night and looking for a different place to try, brought up my bookmarks on my trusty Unilocal Mobile App and found Empanada Express.
You could drive right by this place if you’re not looking carefully. It’s right by the Subway at the corner of Colfax and Colorado Blvd for your reference.
The place was empty when arrived around dinner time and only two ladies working. The place is actually very cute on the inside, if you want a quiet dining experience I would recommend eating in like I did. Service was very friendly. The menu is pretty simple and can seem limited if you’re used to pages of menu options. Personally I like a limited menu, it makes me believe the place is confident in these dishes and can make them perfectly. If you notice when Robert Irvine of Restaurant Impossible fixes restaurants he almost always strips the menu down considerably. I would rather a small option and cooked to perfection than a ton of variety and just mediocre. Back to the true review.
I ordered a Mango juice, the dinner platter with a pork empanada with two sides. I can’t remember what it’s called but I got something similar to mozzarella sticks but so much better and a side salad. The mozzarella like things I got were fried in a way I’ve never had before, cheese gooey and tasty the way it should be. The side salad was served with cucumber and avocado. Two tasty sauces on the side, the red one was a kick that was pleasantly surprising and a green one with cilantro I think. Now to the empanada. This is my first empanada EVER and I was going to savor the moment. The emapanada was perfectly fried with a great crust on the inside, you should hear the crunch as you cut into it for the first bite. The empanada was delectable, shredded pork with melted cheese with every morsel. Perfect size for dinner.
While I was there I also noticed they do an exceptional take out business and you can walk in and order and have your order within 10 minutes — all scratch made. Delicious, and I can see myself picking up some to go on my way home from work.
Less than $ 15 for sublime food.

Delicious, fresh Caribbean/​Venezuelan food. Priced right, courteous service, and very clean.

My family is used to Puerto Rican style empanadas so we were not sure what to expect. However, we were pleasantly surprised! The food was fantastic. We were the only people dining-​in and our waitress who also served as the cook was very nice. My family had empanadas, black beans, rice, sweet plantains, soup and sopapillas. Everything was delicious and we would absolutely recommend the place. Will be going back and taking friends for sure!

Great atmosphere and the arepas were out of this world!

When I take a chance on a graffiti-​marked hole in the wall in a dodgy neighborhood, I want the restaurateur to acknowledge my supportiveness by acting happy to see me. Instead, it too often happens that I seem to be intruding on an otherwise pleasant evening in which cooking food and serving it to customers did not originally figure. This was the case here, where a quarter of the items on the already small menu were unavailable, those that were available were not very tasty, and the server seemed to want to be somewhere else. After a while, so did we.

Seeing as how I like the Empanada Express Grill in Berkeley so much (
) I was pretty excited that my new neighborhood had another location so very close to me. So, Nick and I made it a priority to get over here for dinner as quick as quick can be.
It’s newer and I think still trying to get the kinks worked out. Kinks, for example, like having the neon open sign on, the open sign board outside, but telling us they are closed when we go in. That was the first attempt. On the second attempt we made it in the door and the kinks included not really having anything on the drink list we requested (however, they did have original Pepsi in glass bottles) and not having some of the menu items we ordered.
Even with all that said I’m still a big fan. Because, really the empanadas alone are enough for a meal and they are so affordable. This isn’t a fancy place — the atmosphere is akin to those cheap, authentic taco places I love so much. But, this is cheap Venezualan deliciousness and honestly I don’t really care where I’m sitting when I’m eating it.
As Thomas S said the wait for your food can be hefty so don’t go starving, but order ahead or be prepared to wait a bit when you get there and all will be good.

Empanada Express offers delicious Venezuelan for $ 5-​$ 15 a plate, which is pretty hard to find anywhere in Denver. It’s fresh, delicious, and the place recently opened, so it still has a family feel to it. The Sweet Domino Empanada and the fried plantains were standouts on the menu. The only thing really missing is a liquor license, but that does help keep money in your wallet.

This place is right down the street from my house. I was excited for something to take over the less than mediocre Taco Exchange. I had never had an empanada before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I was extremely pleased. I ordered a Pabellon Crio, which is an
emanada with black beans, plantain and pork. The crust on this thing was fantastic, and the red dipping sauce really topped it off! Don’t look at the online PDF menu, it must be old. The prices appeared to be from the 90’s. I ordered carry out, and it travelled well. It was 6:00 on a Friday, and there was not a soul in the place. So, if you live in Park Hill give this a shot, it’s a good addition to our ever growing choices. Looks like it could use the support.

I was fist pumping like a Jersey Shore cast member when I discovered Empanada Express Grill was taking over the old Taco Exchange location. Yeah, cheap taco delivery was novel, but an Arepa Reina Pepiada is more fun than access to a freshly febrezed «smush room.» I’m not going to spare you with the nitty gritty. The Colfax location brings all of the same action you’ll see at their West Denver and Golden locations, but without the long drive across town. In addition to arepas, empanadas, yucca and plantains, you can find a number of juices and sodas from Venezuala and Colombia. The atmosphere is definitely a step up from their previous locations, but the wait is still long. Good, fresh food takes time. If you want to make a to-​go order, I suggest you call in advance.