Oh hey friends and neighbors! If I were standing beside you right now and you asked me about “5280 Dines”, I’d probably leap into the air or do a cartwheel as I explained the event to you. I am a little bit obsessed with 5280 Dines, which is the annual party thrown by 5280 magazine to celebrate their October Best Restaurants issue. I started attending 5280 Dines back in 2020—before I even moved to Denver!—and I love 5280’s Best Restaurants list so much that I’ve found all the previous ones online to better understand the evolution of Denver’s dining scene.
Here’s why I’m excited: 5280 Dines is a celebration of the metro area’s dining scene that takes place this Sunday night (October 21st) in The Hangar at Stanley. Guests get to eat bites from 16 of the top 25 restaurants in and around Denver (and a few special guest restaurants, too) while enjoying an open bar and several drinks tasting stations. There’s a $40 wine and prize pull with excellent prizes (including gift cards to some Stanley businesses and, well, wine).
The participating restaurant list is basically the same as a Best Places for Date Night list or a Where You Should Take Out of Town Guests list. Take a look:
- 12@Madison
- Annette
- Basta
- Bar Dough
- Black Cat
- Blackbelly
- Call
- Cattivella
- Cholon
- Coperta
- Dio Mio
- Julep
- Senor Bear
- Sushi Den
- Tavernetta
- The Plimoth
I’ve eaten at all of those restaurants except for one (#showoff) and I can vouch for their excellence. But you don’t need me vouching for anything — these restaurants were selected by the food editor of 5280, who eats for a living.
Those of you who are Stanley aficianados from the beginning may remember that we hosted 5280 Dines in October 2024, two months before our first businesses opened. We lined a construction fence with string lights to make a pathway to The Hangar and couldn’t let attendees inside the building since it wasn’t finished yet. We are thrilled that 5280 Dines is back now that we are an actually open marketplace. Our very favorite thing is bringing people together at Stanley for a special occasion, and we know 5280 Dines will be.
Tickets to 5280 Dines are $75 each—this is a fundraiser for the Porter-Billups Leadership Academy—and for that price, you get admission to one of the buzziest food-focused parties of the year, bites from more than a dozen of the best restaurants in Colorado, an open bar, and great big foodie fun. We hope to see lots of you there.