Iron Rail Tavern

After driving by several times, I finally decided to give Iron Rail Tavern a try. Glad I did– Excellent! The food was delicious and the service was great. We came in for Sunday brunch. They have a good variety to suit all appetites. I had the IRT omelette which was as tasty as it looked. My brother ordered the Southern Style Fried Chicken. He too loved it. And the generous portions are always a plus. All staff was friendly, restaurant was clean, a great place all around. I’m excited to go back and try their steak.

While the service was great the food was bad. All three meals were overlooked. Kids slider was inedible because it was way over cooked.

Made a reservation. Waited nearly 20 minutes when we got there to find out they gave our table away while we were waiting. The girl at the desk kept disappearing and the manager or whatever he was didn’t acknowledge us or anybody else waiting for a table. We were not the only ones that left without getting seated. Looked like the crowd was older, 55+ and the menu wasn’t very alluring anyway. The atmosphere and the crowd reminded me of an old country club. I won’t bother coming back.

The food here is top notch. It’s one of those places where if you don’t know what you want, just order anything because it is all good. Steaks always come out the way you asked, drinks are strong and tasty, and the vegetables make me want to eat vegetables. Seriously, this place makes me like Brussels sprouts and salads. Go there, I promise you’ll leave having been served properly.

My wife and I came to the Iron Rail Tavern for the 1^st time tonight with some friends and it was great! From the service to the food, everything was on point!

Well the waitstaff and owner are friendly here. The service is okay and could use a bit improving. How ever so. e of the food is quite good. Had their pork belly appetizer tremendously delicious. French Onion soup yummy. My wife had their Mahi Mahi said the Brussel sprouts that came with the meal, were «the bomb». I had the beef tips, while it was delicious I was quite shock to see such a small portion of meat. But was told that it’s a new item on the menu. Owner said he’d correct it.
So we’ll be back for a different meal. I’d definitely recommend this place

AWESOME!!! We’ve been wanting to check out the Iron Rail Tavern for a while now, so when my brother & sister in law wanted to treat us to a birthday dinner, we chose this place. We checked out the menu on line and thought it could be ok. Boy, where we wrong… This place is FANTASTIC!
There was an open table in the bar, so there was no real wait time. I’m not positive, but it seems like our waiter was also the bartender. He was fun and knowledgeable about the menu and offered suggestions that were on point. We ordered four different dishes so we could try a little bit of everything. We had the handmade tater tots, the rib eye with onion rings and mac and cheese, the tavern cordon bleu, the beef tips, and the southern fried chicken. Everything was delicious. The poblano white cheddar mashed potatoes with sausage gravy was a huge hit. So rich and creamy! The rib eye was perfectly cooked and melted in your mouth. We also tried a couple dessert, the lemon poppy seed cake and the chocolate peanut butter cake… so good!
And the drinks… not the usual bar cocktails. Perfectly mixed and so refreshing. The staff was great. Everyone was attentive and fun. Definitely check them out, I know we will definitely be back! Cheers!

Fantastic! New favorite place. Homemade gouda stuffed tator tots, yum! Philly dip (name?)sandwich is so decadent. Husband had the shrimp poboy, delicious! Great service and food done right!

First time here. Cool little place in an area of town that needs some upgrading. Great burger for me and the wife had salmon, which was very good. Complimentary fresh-​made potato chips. Tons of beer on tap, wines and whisky!

Great food, cold beer, nice patio! Had an appetizer, entrée, and dessert — all were fabulous. Service was outstanding.

Delicious, delicious, delicious! What a great find! I am so glad I saw this place on the way home and talked my family into coming her. Everything from the appetizers to the dessert was delicious! Our server was fabulous as well. Will definitely be coming back here.

I was staying in a hotel a couple of miles west, and wasn’t really in the mood for heading downtown. After reading some positive reviews here, I decided to head over.
I was immediately welcomed not only by the great bartender, but also by most of the locals dining/​drinking there. I had some pretty conversations, while enjoying some local brew, followed by a good Manhattan, and a pretty good steak. Price-​wise it was very reasonable (this is from a Seattleite driving from Vegas, so YMMV), and it was one of the few places open a bit later.
Overall a very solid place to have a great time if you’re around West Denver, craving good food and drinks, and you don’t want to end at a national chain.

2.5 stars
First I want to say that the waitress we have was absolutely great, her service was excellently refreshing and we really enjoyed having her as a waitress. And the tater tots we ordered as an appetizer were really good. But that is where the goodness ended. I got the macaroni and cheese and chicken and it was swimming in the cheese sauce and it was bland, no seasoning no taste whatsoever. very disappointing. the other people in our party ordered the signature hamburger, both of them said that that it was very bland no seasoning to the meat the only taste that they got was from the mushrooms and bacon on the burger. And the fries were all mushy not crispy at all. Very disappointed.

Stopped here for a late lunch. What a wonderful surprise. I had the Philly cheesesteak and fries. Both were very good. Not quite as good as the cherry creek grill but that place is quite a drive from here. The place is super cozy and the staff was top notch. I will certainly be back. The music was entertaining as I heard some stuff I’ve not heard for 20 plus years. I’m glad Vincenza’s restaurant was such a turn off. I decided to eat here instead. Good move.

Really cool place. The bartender was really nice and a great server. The place was well decorated & did a good job of being a upscale establishment. The food was very good. Beer selection on tap was okay without a ton of different types of beer; however, I found a pale ale that I like alot. I recommend.

What an awesome find… this place is a hidden gem!
If having an incredible 25 draft beer lines on tap wasn’t enough, they also have Jack Daniels on a nitro tap pouring silky-​smooth Tennessee whisky.
Their tater tots rival my favorite tots in the world from Highland Tavern. Don’t miss the mac & cheese! It’s unbelievable, made with creamy smoked Gouda, and available as a side or an entrée. We also enjoyed the mahi-​mahi fish and chips and the delicious cheese steak.
Our server, Chris, was awesome offering lots of suggestions for delicious choices and was very attentive.
I’m so excited to come back here and try their brunch which a they recently began offering on Sundays.

Where oh where to start? I guess at the beginning…
I looked at their website, was pleased with the menu, read some positive reviews, and even saw that I could make reservations by email. Excellent — I love the efficiency of that. Sent in an email late Saturday morning, requesting a reservation for four for 8pm that evening. No reply all day and it was getting close to dinner time, so at 7:15 I called to ask about the status of our reservation. Girl on the phone had no clue what I was talking about, so I was passed off to someone else. He also seemed very confused, so I walked him through the website, saying that on the «Contact» page, it said to email reservations to
and his reply was «oh, that goes to the owner’s email address, he probably forgot to tell anyone». First red flag. I asked if they would still be able to accommodate us and he replied in the affirmative.
My girlfriend and I walked in (at 8pm on a Saturday) and were greeted by an empty table/​desk that apparently doubles as the hostess stand, as evidenced by the menus strewn across its top; I flagged down someone official-​looking in the dining room to see about getting our table. A couple of servers and what appeared to be a GM-​type hustled over and couldn’t decide where to put us. Someone finally suggested table 22 — I think that was the number, I don’t recall exactly — more to the point, nobody who worked there seemed to know where that particular table was located and they settled on an 8-​top in the corner of the dining room. On our way to the table the GM-​type said instead of sticking us in the corner he’d put us at the 4-​top right in the middle of the dining room.
Ok, fine, just a tiny wrinkle, right? Not so fast — it seems that the dining room, inexplicably, is situated in between the kitchen and the dish hole. Now, I may be wrong about the layout and if anyone who works there is reading this and would care to educate me, I’d love to know, because it was unbelievably distracting and annoying to have a constant parade of busboys rattling back and forth past our table with bins full of dirty (then clean, etc) dishware, glasses, silverware — it felt like we were intruding on prep for the day.
We sat down, got our menus, aaannndddd the menu was different than the version posted on their website. Not entirely different, but not the same — and no notice on the site that the menu varies. Just another wrinkle, nothing to get upset about, right? English teachers and spelling geeks beware — they don’t have a proofreader on staff, so you may want to have a drink before you open the menu, fortunately they have a very good selection of local beers on tap, I was pleased to see Odell’s Cutthroat Porter, an old favorite.
On to the food — we started with their specialty, the House Made Tater Tots, which are stuffed with smoked gouda and served with a house made chipotle ketchup. Not bad, but unevenly cooked — the bottom was almost burnt while the top was light golden. Eh, just a little wrinkle, right? We also ordered the pork belly appetizer and were informed that the table behind us ordered the last portion. Memo to every server everywhere — the proper response in that situation is «I’m sorry, our kitchen ran our of that tonight», don’t point at another table and say that they did it. Poor form, but just another wrinkle, right? The highlight of the night was the Baked Marinated Feta, which was served sided by sauteed spinach and toasted baguette — a perfect small plate, truly excellent.
Entrees — My girlfriend ordered the Black Truffle and Porcini Ravioli, purportedly served with a Parmesan cream. What she got was a bowl of Parmesan cream soup with raviolis floating in it — drowning food in sauce makes it look like you are hiding the food. I ordered the Beef Short Ribs, served with chipotle mashed potatoes, but it looked and tasted like something from a cafeteria, the cut of meat wholly unidentifiable and drowned in sauce. At first there was no sign of the mashed potatoes, until I finally located them buried under the heaping pile of shredded meat, chopped onions and mushrooms, and lifeless grey sauce. Anyone who flew a lot in the 80s and 90s would recognize it as airline Beef Bourgignon.

Throughout the night there were no fewer than three men in dress shirts who were milling about the dining room, having hushed conversations with each other, and with servers, and occasionally checking on tables. No clue who if they were owners, or GM-​types, because none of them ever introduced themselves. Just a little wrinkle, right?
All in all the experience was so disjointed that it felt like we were there on the first night of dinner service, but Iron Rail has been open for more than three months, one would think that would be sufficient time to at least iron out the wrinkles in the red flags that kept popping up, but they couldn’t even take an email reservation. They have a ways to go

Although I don’t like to be harsh on new businesses I believe that being honest and frank can only be of benefit.
For my friends that don’t like to read lengthy reviews… I’d say try at your own risk.
First of all, I know that shtuff can happen and a reservation at a busy restaurant is tough to manage (A half of an hour wait? Maybe best not to take reservations?). They did apologize a lot (I wonder if that was because the reservation was made on their Unilocal listing) and comped us a small sampling of their «new» tater tots.
We ordered two items off of the Tapas (or what I call appetizers) menu. The Pork Belly ($ 8) and the rec’d by our server Hickory Smoked Chicken Wings ($ 6). The pork belly came sliced with a slaw side. Belly was very fatty but cooked decently. It wasn’t super tender but wan’t tough either. The problem was that it was woefully under seasoned and with no discernible smoke flavor. The wings were possibly the worst wings i have ever had. They did have a little smoke to them but had no seasoning whatsoever to the skin (and definitely hadn’t been brined because the flavorlessness ran to the bone). No salt, pepper, herb, or spice and the two sauces they were served with… the Buffalo tasted of either Durkee’s or Frank’s hot sauce and the Bleu Cheese was closer to a thin Ranch.
Our entrée orders consisted of the Beef Short Ribs $ 18 (he likened it to a pulled beef stew), Chicken Mac and Cheese $ 13 (she said it tasted similar to a frozen mac with sliced packaged chicken breast), the Iron Rail Signature Burger $ 12 (the consensus at the table was that this was the best looking dish. he said it was pretty good.).
I had the Iron Rail Wedge Salad w/​Pork Belly Bacon $ 9
(maybe 5 or six pieces of tiny ¼ inch cubes of belly, very small dice on the tomatoes, were there red onions?, and the description had the word «balsamic» at the end. don’t know, It came with an okay housemade bleu cheese dressing that I had on the side.
and the Filet Mignon French Onion Soup $ 8
It was served in a rather large shallow dish and is not the gratined style (no caramelized cheese). It has a small oval of toast in the middle of the large shallow bowl (I think there was cheese involved? Maybe under the toast?). The broth was good (I didn’t finish it all. That’s saying something.) and the onions plentiful (cooked but it was missing the big flavor that heavy caramelization gives) and the filet mignon was tender (but again cut small and sparse).
I guess being the snob that I am nothing on the beer list held any interest for me (they had run out of Rickoli’s Authoritah :(but they did have local beers on tap. My wino buddy was disappointed in their selection of reds.
I guess I need to try more of the menu but frankly… I’m almost afraid to. This visit was a MAJOR miss. Hopefully if I get the courage up to try them again it’ll be better the next time around.

I thought the place was okay. I try burgers all over town and am always looking for a place to just «WOW» me. Unfortunately this place didn’t. It’s nice enough and the wait staff were very attentive. My burger came out pretty well done after specially stating «medium». It was juicy but had a heavy smoke flavor to the patty. The fries were well seasoned but not crisp (flimsy). The portion on both burger and the fries was huge! I would like to come back and try those tots I see and maybe enjoy a drink at happy hour. I wouldn’t do the burger twice here though.

Excellent sauces. Wings cams with a tasty sauce great flavor and not hot. Cheese Stake, SUPER Delicious.
Claire is very friendly and helpful. I’ll be back.