If there’s one culinary topics I’ve railed on a lot here at Offbeat Eats, it’s the basic concept of biscuits. I love a good biscuit, one that’s delicate, flaky and rich, with a nice buttermilk flavor to it, and a nice caramel browning on top. They are great with sweet or savory filling, and oh so enjoyable. Alas, with a few exceptions (like, for example, Montpelier’s Downhome), most everyplace in New England makes biscuits, that, quite frankly, suck. So when I’m traveling, particularly in the South, I like to search out good biscuits. So when I find a regional chain that’s reliably able to produce some tasty biscuits, I figure it is worth a shoutout. That takes us to the Denver Biscuit Company.
So yes, I’m reviewing a chain, but it’s a small, regional chain. With six current locations (3 in Denver, 1 in Aurora, 1 in Colorado Springs, and one way off in… Kansas City? Well, it’s less sever than Ted’s having a location in Tempe, AZ), Denver Biscuit Company is the product of Denver company Atomic Provisions (who also runs the Atomic Cowboy bar chain, and the Fat Sully’s pizza chain, often co-located with Denver Biscuit). Indeed, Denver Biscuit Company started as the side venture of Atomic Cowboy, when owner Drew Shader decided to bring Southern-style biscuits to the Denver area with his Biscuit Bus. The Biscuit Bus became so popular it eventually grew into The Denver Biscuit Company, and like Atomic Cowboy, started branching out.
The menu at Denver Biscuit Company can be summarized quite simply as “Biscuits”. Oh, there’s a bit more detail than that… they’ve got both biscuit sandwiches and biscuit plates. But for both they’ve got a lot of variety: Biscuit sandwiches ranch from the sweet end (the Dahlia, with egg, sausage, apple butter, maple syrup and sausage), to the savory (the Elmer, with pulled pork and BBQ sauce), to a BLT (the Sherman), to several variants of fried chicken on a biscuit (like the Winona, with fried chicken and pimento cheese). On the plate side, they’ve got a nice assortment as well, ranging from biscuits and gravy (but of course!), shrimp and grits in a biscuit bowl, biscuit pot pie, and even… biscuit French toast.
Myself, I opted for the Winona, a fried chicken breast served on a biscuit with housemade Tillamook cheddar pimento cheese sauce. I was quite pleased: the chicken itself was a generous, nicely breaded and crispy breast, with a very flavorful and moist interior, making this one of the better chicken breasts I’ve had recently. The pimento sauce was smooth, creamy, cheddary, and having just enough pepper kick to make it complement the chicken. And the biscuit? Well, Denver Biscuit Co. does justice to their namesake: the biscuit was delicate, flaky, and rich, having a pleasant crumb, a slight crunch, and a really smooth, buttermilk biscuit flavor. I’d happily come back for just a single biscuit on a plate.
So yeah, I was quite pleased with Denver Biscuit Co. The biscuits were very nicely executed, and they built a nice selection of sandwiches and plates off of that firm building block. I’d love to come back and try the biscuit French toast, their rendition of a Nashville Hot Chicken (the “Beeler”), or one of their other offerings. It’s worth checking them out if you are around the Denver or Colorado Springs area.
