Hops Restaurant Bar & Brewery

Open Letter to Rita Restaurant Group,
I have been a loyal Hops customer for 3 years, ever since I moved to Denver. My family had been going to Hops every Thursday for many years previous to my arrival in Denver. Nearly weekly, 4 – 8 of my family went to your restaurant. We went there because the people there were great. Your food was always good, but nothing spectacular. Your beer never lived up to the name «hops.» But we went weekly anyway because of the attention and kindness of your staff.
This is the very same staff that you just shut out of your Denver locations with no forewarning, no explanation, no compassion. The doors were locked and managers were not even allowed to talk to them.
If your company had a shred of human decency, you would have called an all-​hands meeting and told people face to face. More over, you could have cooked the finest steaks remaining and had a final staff party with your food and beer that is almost certainly going to be disposed of instead. You could have allowed your employees who have worked together day in and day out to say goodbye, to cry and hug and to change forever what for them was their daily lives for so many years in a human way. Instead, we found the staff crying in the parking lot; they were left with no explanation in confusion and anger.
It is simply a complete shame that you have treated your loyal and fantastic staff in such a demeaning manner. I am ashamed to have been your customer. It won’t happen again. I will never eat at another one of your establishments. If I could take back the many thousands of dollars that my family and I have spent at your restaurants I would.
There is one thing that I would never take back, though, and that is having met the fine employees from your restaurant. Seeing them weekly was a nice event for me and my family and a real highlight of having moved to Denver. They deserved so much better than what you just did.
Your former customer

We only stopped here for couple beers after having my birthday dinner and I dont remember LOVING the beer but we did get to keep the glasses, and the bartender was super nice… We chatted with a couple across the bar who also were on there way home from Sturgis and the conversation was nice. The bar top is also pretty cool!!!
I cant say too much because we didnt eat here, nor did we rely on waiter service, but if we are ever in the area, we may stop back in a for a beer… who knows!

Went to Hops last night it was my sons birthday. We ask the waitress to not rush us and explained that we didn’t want our appetizer, salads and dinner served together and that far too often restaurants
don’t time the food properly.
From the time we ordered to the time our entrée was served it took a total of 17 minutes. We even ordered onion rings to start. They were barely warm and came out so fast that I am sure they were precooked.
We told the servers every time something was brought out to slow down but nope thst didn’t happen. We had so many plates on our table at one time full of food. Ridiculous no one could or would want to eat that fast. We complained 3 times so they comped one entrée but our meal and evening was kind of ruined. Food was ok nothing special.

We stopped in here for a late lunch before leaving town. We sat outside to take advantage of the great weather. They have a decent little patio out front. We waited about ten minutes and had multiple waiters/​waitresses pass by but no one stop at our table. I finally flagged down a waitress. She was very apologetic and offered to take our drink order and find our waiter for us. She returned with our drinks and let us know our waiter would be over shortly. We ordered a pitcher of their sangria which came out wonderful. It was a good balance of sweet and strong. Another 10 – 15 minutes went by and still no sign of our waiter. The waitress who got our drinks came by and asked if he’d taken our order. We said no so she let us place an appetizer order with her. As she took our order a waiter came over looking frustrated and asked what she was doing. I cut in to explain that we had been there over 20 minutes and had yet to see our waiter so she was helping out. After I said it I realized I was setting myself up to have my food spit in. Oh well. I guess worse things could happen. He took our order and left. The same waitress brought out our appetizer, not our frustrated waiter. Although he did bring out our entrees when they were ready. Only problem, we had no silverware or napkins. I could have attempted to do without but I’m sure I would have gotten strange looks eating a steak with my hands. Thankfully the sweet waitress that had been helping checked on us again and got us silverware. Not more than ten minutes after we got our entrees the waiter brought our tab. We didn’t ask for our tab. We still wanted to order another drink. We weren’t in any sort of rush to get to the airport so we wanted to enjoy a drink out on the patio. We never saw our waiter again. he left our empty plates in front of us and never came back. I had to go inside and order drinks from the bar for our table. When it came time to pay our tab we had to give our tab to the bartender to close out for us because our waiter was again MIA. Overall the food was good, not great. The steak was average, my brothers lobster was a bit too chewy and rubbery. The drinks were good. Our server was horrible. Had it not been for the other waitress stepping in and helping I would have been really upset. It also would have been nice to have a manager come by or walk around to check on tables and see how everything was going. If I return to Lakewood/​Golden, I may return to give them another chance.

Hops is true to it’s 2.5 stars. I haven’t been impressed by the beer here. For a place called hops I always expect a bigger selection or at least an ipa… However, the flaky buttery airy croissants with a delicious honey butter drizzle that they bring you after you sit down is awesome! Awesome enough to cause a fight at your table over the last one. The nachos were pretty good. I like how they arranged it in a flowery shape so you could easily grab a chip already loaded with just the right amount of toppings. $ 12 for nachos and beers. Not bad. I’ll have to try the margaritas next time… I guess I have to order something to go with those scrumptious croissants!

Hops could certainly do better… or pull out of the Denver market altogether. The Beer is tasteless and the food is average fare. With Denver restaurants going upscale in the recent past and the Micro brewery madness upon us, I wont be back, unless a client asks me to go again.

I came here with some coworkers because they told me about the nice happy hour they have in the early evening: 2-​for-​1 beers. I typically try not to go to chain restaurants, especially chain breweries. The interior décor is setup kind of like a cafeteria or diner in my opinion; not the greatest ambiance in my opinion. The beer is not good at all. I like full flavor beers and this is certainly not the place for that. The food is ok, but nothing that left me wanting to return for more.

I usually try to avoid chain restaurants… but Hops is right by the hotel my dad stays at when he’s in town for business, so he likes for us to meet there for dinner. The beer is decent… not horrible, but pretty forgettable. My fav beer so far has been their Oktoberfest. The 2 for 1 Happy Hour special is a great deal during the week, and kind of makes up for everything else being a little expensive.
The food is where it really goes downhill. The Grilled Chicken Linguini dish was absolutely horrible. Very dry chicken, and the dish had absolutely no flavor. The Jamaican chicken was overly sweet, and again very dry. Even the honey-​butter croissants served with the meal were hard, and only lukewarm. The one thing I did actually enjoy my last couple visits was their side Caesar salad. I think I should just order that and beer the next time I meet my dad for dinner there.

Pros: Fast, inexpensive. I had Chili and it was very good.
Cons: My colleague had baby back ribs and said they were only OK. The décor is dingy. And the worst, the beer was sub par. I had a flight of six beers and there wasn’t one that made me think, wow this is great.

Was super hungry so it was worth going to once, but more than likely won’t again. The beer was OK, nothing special, and the food was bland and warm (not hot), temperature wise. Both mine and my friends food was over cooked and next to flavor less. On top of the meh food, our waiter just didn’t seem to care about anything. Probably would have rather stabbed himself than come in to work to serve us.
I think if all you wanted was to go in and have a beer you might make it out OK, but as a whole I would try somewhere else first.

The beer and Root Beer (both brewed in-​house) are really hit-​or-​miss. I usually enjoy the root beer, although there have been some batches that are too bitter or too sweet. It’s unfortunate that inconsistency plague an otherwise decent restaurant. I have never been a fan of their beers, as I have usually found them monotone in taste and not very enjoyable.
The burgers are also extremely variable, but lately I have had nothing but dried out stale burgers with no flavor. I’d avoid the food, with the exception of the sweet rolls.
The service has usually been very solid and the waitstaff has always been friendly regardless. I love the butter sugar rolls, but don’t eat too many, as they are extremely sugary and decadent.

We have been here several times and have always liked it, that’s why we kept going back. However, the last time ruined the restaurant for me. We were one of very few tables in the restaurant and our server made us feel like a huge inconvenience.
we both ordered soup and Caesar salad and soup, pretty easy right? and we ordered a side of their chips. Chips never came. But did show up on the bill (when we finally got the bill
We asked for the check and waited and waited and waited…
finally got the check, the server was so rude about taking the chips off. I know they aren’t expensive but why do I have to pay for something I never received? She walked away to «deal with it»
Put our credit card out and waited waited waited waited…
No apology from her, I think she actually expected me to apologize to her for being there. There are enough other similar restaurants that this one isn’t worth it anymore.

This has been my go-​to place for 3 years every Wednesday during the school year now. I love the place.
They brew the beer AND root beer in the restaurant. The root beer is the reason I love to come here. It is very unlike any other one I have had. The flavor does change depending on who made the batch, but it normally tastes really good. Of all of the beers I have had the Jan/​Feb seasonal is my favorite, a good porter. Of the standard brews, the Thorough Bred Red is what I’ll get.
As far as the food goes, I go between a burger and soup/​salad. All of the appetizers are tasty as are the desserts (we tend to get one of one or the other and rotate though when we go). Occasionally my burger will come out cooked a little more than I like, but we’ve gone in groups as large as 25 – 35 people and almost everyone ordered burgers, something is going to get mixed up.
The waitstaff is my favorite though. Not surprisingly, I am known. Everyone is super friendly and remembers my order by asking if I want my usual.

Also known as Hops and Grill if you are looking off of the brewery map of Colorado. The beer here is solid. The service is a bit on the long end but nothing horrible. I would suggest going here when you don’t have a schedule to meet though. Everyone that worked here was nice and friendly. They have their standard beers on tap most of the time as well as seasonal beers where they offer something new about each month.
The beer itself is fairly good but plays it safe as far as any experimental brews go. The hamburgers taste great! I had a Swiss and Mushroom burger which I devoured in no time at all!

The honey-​butter glazed croissants are to die for!

So I don’t know why this place isn’t at least four stars. We have enjoyed it when we went. Anyways we got our free bread which is really good and they will always bring you more. I got a wedge salad which was huge and very good (we shared it because it was like we were sailing on a huge boat of wedge salad with real blue cheese and bacon) when our waiter brought my stake he asked very kindly if I didn’t mind cutting into it so we’d know if it was done right. It was perfect. My potatoes were really good and the fish that we got was amazing (and I really don’t even like fish) it was battered perfectly and tasted amazing and crisp on the outside and just wonderful and not fishy on the inside.
I rather like the location and seeing the brew stuff there as well as the kitchen (we sat in the bar area at a table) They wre quite busy but our service was wonderful and prompt without being in your face. Price isn’t too bad either. We’ll keep going back for sure

OK. It’s a typical burger and brewpub place. The beer I had was good and the burger had good flavor. Chips that came with it weren’t anything to write home about. Good service, though we were not there during a busy time period.

Bummed. I was a Hop’s fan when the first (and at the time, only) Hop’s opened right down the road from me in Clearwater. As most pre-​chain restaurants are, it was stellar and a regular stop. Many years later, I stop in one maybe once every other year or so. The food isn’t what it was but the beer had always been fairly consistent.
I was disappointed in almost everything about this location. 2 adults, 2 young children and we were sat at a table within the bar… at happy hour. Ok. The steak was blah, the beers were served in WARM mugs, wtf? And the root beer I ordered for my son to try (that I had boasted to him about forever) was WARM and as flat as could be.
We won’t be back. Sad to see what it has become.

Thursday night NFL football = $ 3 burgers and 2 for 1 beers.
Can’t beat this place for the price. It was astounding how cheap the beers were, 2 beers for $ 2.57 and the burgers were $ 3 due to the NFL Thursday night game.
The atmosphere was quite quiet even though college and professional football games were on. This is more a family joint rather than a bar type «male» atmosphere. The bar was adequate while the beers were well worth the price. The burgers were also juicy and made the way you liked it. Burgers weren’t the best but for $ 3 why complain.
The service was good but I wish the burgers were bigger and the beers were bigger too. I guess bigger could be better.

This was seriously the WORST chain restaurant I have ever dined at. EVER. My boyfriend ordered the jerk chicken, and got under-​done, chewy dog food with rice that was so over cooked it actually disintegrated at the touch of his fork.
My pasta needed a pound of salt.
The beers sucked, but my salad had bacon on it.
Down $ 44.36.