Mexican Night at Stateline Bar and Grill.

Back in 2016, I wrote about a much-loved local restaurant called R&F Restaurant, owned by Ray Arballo, and his mother, Fana.  On Wednesday nights, it was always packed due to it being Mexican Night.  With the Arballos’ Mexican heritage, they were able to put out the most outstanding Mexican food around.  Unfortunately, due to financial troubles, R&F closed down, and Mexican night was no more. 

Then we found out that the Arballos were now working at Stateline Bar and Grill, just east, on Highway 491, of the Utah-Colorado borderline.  Mexican night was back, it was on Friday night instead which leads me to the story of Stateline Bar and Grill’s Mexican Night.  While the Arballos no longer work at Stateline, they helped owner, Shelley Jean, and new chef, Julie, develop and upgrade the new Friday menu.

Which now leads me to tell you all about that Chef Julie, who had been at Stateline for two years, and is now also the general manager.  Julie, who is a jewel, and many folks call her Jules, is like a sister from another mother as we have so much in common with our culinary developments.  Her inspiration was her great grandmother and learned the concepts of home cooking from her.  She began her love for cooking at seven years old, and her parents were supportive and encouraged her.  Being self-taught, for the most part, she went from home chef to restaurant chef with the notion of, “make food with love and that puts the extra special ingredient into all the dishes.”

Chef Julie is a hoot, so very friendly, and enjoys sharing stories about developing new recipes, and the reactions from customers, local or just passing through.  She is proud of her achievements, and happily told us about Stateline’s winning points.  Sauces and dressings are made from scratch, except for Italian and bleu cheese.  If you enjoy country fried steak or deep-fried battered fish, it is also made from scratch and hand battered.  When it comes to sourcing, local businesses are relied on as much as possible, while other items come from food companies.

 

Alright, now to the focus of this article, Mexican Night.  When it comes to the chile peppers used, it is Hatch all the way, and they are roasted on premises.  Now this is an important point, onions, tomatoes and garlic are also roasted on premises, and you will appreciate this importance, since it intensifies the scent and flavors of the vegetables. With your dinner order, chips and salsa are served; the salsa is served warm, and not one ingredient overwhelms the others.  Here now, I will allow Roy to review the salsa, since he did eat three quarters of it before our meal was served.  Roy says, “At first, the mild heat hugs the tip of the tongue and makes its way gently to the back of the throat.  The minced vegetables allow for a larger scoop upon the chips which packs more flavorful munching in the mouth.”  Thank you dear for that descriptive review, and I bet everyone reading this is saying to themselves, “I got to get me some of that!”

 

Now to the main dishes, Roy tried the “Featured Special” which was Birria Tacos, two tacos (choice of hard or soft, flour or corn), stuffed with seasoned shredded beef and cheese.  A dipping sauce made from ancho chile gives this dish a type of “French dip” feature where the taco can be dipped for extra flavor.  Refried beans, rice, lettuce and chopped tomatoes on the side.  Poor Roy though had eaten so much salsa and chips, that he needed to take half of his meal home.  Ah, but letting it sit for several hours only brought the flavors together more, and intensified the eating experience after reheating.  That is a win, if anyone wonders how leftovers taste the next day; they taste great!

 

My meal was the Combo Plate, two enchiladas (I chose the shredded beef) topped with, what Stateline calls, “Christmas sauce”, and you guessed it, half red chile and half green chile sauces.  The taco (soft, flour tortilla was my choice) was stuffed with seasoned ground beef.  Refried beans, rice, lettuce, chopped tomatoes and it was all just right. 

 

 

Sopapillas also come with the meal, a puffy tortilla pillow that is so very yummy with drizzled honey over it.   By the way, a Taco Plate and Chimichanga are also on the menu; along with chicken or spicy pork as additional offerings in fillings.  However, always ask your server about the featured special, you do not want to miss out on something awesome, and different from the norm.

 

 

Also ordered, for take home, was a small bucket of Sweet Potato Fries; crispy and tender, and those became a perfect snack while watching a movie for Saturday date night.   This means, while Friday is Mexican night, the entire menu for Stateline is also offered.  Stateline is perfect for couples, families, friends or even coworkers looking for a nice night out together after work.  Not everyone might want Mexican, shocking, I know, but with the entire menu up for grabs, it is a win-win night for all.

 

Mary Cokenour

 

 

 

Stateline Bar and Grill

Address: 69576 US-491, Dove Creek, CO 81324

Phone: (970) 677-2649

 

Hours of Operation:

Thursday thru Sunday:  11am to 9pm

Closed: Monday thru Wednesday

 

Brunch Offered: Saturday and Sunday

 

 

A Well-Deserved Lunch at The Lunch Box.

With a to-do list of eight items, Roy and I were at work at 9am.  At work at our home that is.  The sky was dark, the wind steadily rising, and weather reports foretold rain and 40 F will be a nightly thing.  Also, seems that this year, our first snow will supposedly hit on October 1^st.  So, time to get off our butts, make minor repairs, and winterize.

By 2pm, we had almost all of the list ticked off; two plumbing issues need additional parts and honestly, we did not want to deal with it anymore this weekend.  I had promised Roy that, if we got 80 percent of the list done, we’d splurge and have lunch out.  Mission accomplished, and we headed out to Dove Creek.

Once again, The Lunch Box is a friendly, welcoming restaurant and what we appreciate most is that we are remembered, and our business is just as appreciated as we are personally.  I can count, on one hand, the number of restaurants that treat us like this also, and they will assuredly get our business time after time.

 

So, what was lunch this time?  I had the DC Club Sandwich which had roasted turkey and ham (real turkey and ham, not any of that cold cut crap from plastic packages), tomatoes, red onions, lettuce, Hatch green chile mayo (just a little heat on the tip of the tongue, and went very well with the other ingredients), and grilled sourdough bread.  When this monster was served, I almost fainted…how was I going to eat this!  The sandwich width was 3 and ½-inches thick.  I measured how wide I could open my mouth, and no matter how much I stretched, it was only 2-inches wide.  Pressing the sandwich down a bit, had to be careful that the innards wouldn’t come shooting out the sides of the bread.  This sandwich was amazing in size, taste and overall enjoyment; only could eat one half, so the rest was a leftover for dinner time.

As a side, I ordered the sweet potato fries; crispy on the outside, so very moist and fluffy on the inside. 

 

Roy ordered the Chili Cheese Burger with shoestring fries; house made chili using the pinto beans they purchase locally in Dove Creek.  The burger was smothered in the chili, chopped tomatoes and shredded cheese.  I tasted a sample and this would be perfect on a cold, snowy day to help warm up the body; heck, just having a bowl of that chili will do that too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Facebook, Joshua, the owner, had posted a photo of the house made biscuits, and I asked him to save me a couple.  Besides them, I ordered a cup of the Pork Green Chili to pair with the biscuits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See, Saturday is also our weekly “date night”.  We put on a movie, dating anywhere from the 1930s to the 1980s.  To go with the movie, I usually cook up a pizza, or buffalo wings with hand-cut fries.  Sometimes we order take-out to give me a break from cooking.  Well tonight we’ll be enjoying the other half of the DC Club Sandwich, biscuits and Pork Green Chili.

Mary Cokenour

Dove Creek Welcomes Back “The Lunch Box”.

The Lunch Box

330 US – 491

Dove Creek, CO., 81324

Phone: 970-512-0300

Hours of Operation: Mon – Sat, 8am to 8pm; Sun, 11am to 4pm

 

 

Patio Dining Area

1987, a year dedicated to Michael Jackson being “Bad”, Whitney Houston wanting to dance with somebody, “The Lost Boys” being found and staked, and most historically, Ronald Reagan’s visit to West Berlin, and his famous speech, imploring The USSR’s leader, Mikhail Gorbachev to open the Berlin Wall.  Sorry, cannot resist this side note, but I was a university exchange student in 1979, and we had a guided tour of East Berlin, inside the wall area, and a guard in a turret actually turned his machine gun in our direction.  It was a horrible place just to visit, so imagine trying to live in its confines.

Anyway, while the world was experiencing what I have mentioned, and so much more, Paul Davis, of Dove Creek, Colorado, opened up his small diner, called simply “The Lunch Box”.  Little did he know that it would become an iconic part of Dove Creek’s history.  In 1995, Shelly King purchased the diner, and decided expansion was surely needed. At that time, Highway 491 was known as Highway 666, aka The Haunted Highway, so interest in this brought many a visitor inside the, now, full-service restaurant.  Unfortunately, due to illness, Shelly needed to sell his beloved Lunch Box in 2007, which became The Dinner Bell, and eventually DC Rack Haus.

Grandpa Shelly King

 

In 2023, the restaurant was up for sale once again and fate had a hand in this.  Joshua Robinson, Shelly King’s grandson, had moved from California (born and raised, but his family does have deep New York metropolitan roots) to Monticello.  Fate was knocking at his door and Joshua answered quickly, purchasing in October and wanting a grand opening as soon as possible.  He did not anticipate how much work needed to be done, but November 20^th was the grand day.  This was not just taking on, and continuing, the legacy of grandpa Shelly, this was an act of love for family history.  At six years old, Shelly began teaching Joshua the food business by allowing him to flip burgers in Shelly’s food truck.  For 18 years, Joshua worked in the food industry, but wanted a restaurant of his own due to his grandpa’s influence.

I will be adding tidbits of history in the rest of this article, but I must get to the food; the absolutely most delicious menu items we tried out.  There are three menus: breakfast, lunch/dinner and children’s.  There is so much variety, but here are the favorites: Breakfast – Breakfast Burrito, Country Fried Steak with green chili, Hatch Breakfast Sandwich; Lunch/Dinner – Country Fried Steak (choice of creamy country gravy or green chili), Fried Chicken Sandwich, Patty Melt, Cheeseburger, Hatch Cheeseburger, Chef or Greek Salad.  Now this list is only of local favorites, but there is so much more!  Oh, make sure you are very hungry, and want to take home leftovers; the portions are huge and at very reasonable prices.  Shelly always taught, “Good food + Huge portions + Great prices = Customers continue to come back.”

 

Children's Menu

 

Breakfast Menu

 

 

Lunch-Dinner Menu, Page 2

Lunch-Dinner Menu, Page 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visiting The Lunch Box gave me a day off from cooking, so we purchased four dishes to feed us throughout lunch and dinner.  First is Roy’s favorite sandwich, the patty melt, but this was no ordinary patty melt, it was a double (yes, you can order a single).  Two all-beef patties, smothered in a rich and tangy Swiss and white American cheese blend, grilled onions between toasted marble rye bread.  A comfort food addict’s dream sandwich.

 

 

 

The country fried steak was so amazing, I actually woke up during the night craving another platter of it.  This is Angus beef, fresh not frozen, trimmed and cut down on premises.  The coating is so crunchy good, any bits that fall off are quickly picked up and devoured.  Several times it was, slap Roy’s hand, and “this is mine, get your own!”.  It comes with a serving of crispy outside, fluffy inside shoestring fries and green beans.  Oh, but not our average, just picked out of the garden beans.  No, these are Haricots Verts, a French style green bean which contains more vitamins of the B group, vitamins C and K and minerals such as magnesium, iron and manganese.  The country gravy is creamy, smooth with a hint of cracked black pepper, so as to not overwhelm.

 

Dirty Fries are loaded nachos, but using shoestring fries instead of standard tortilla chips.  The toppings are green chili, cowboy beans, green onions, cilantro, cheddar cheese and sour cream.  The pinto beans are purchased locally in Dove Creek and cooked up fresh in-house; pork shoulder is used for the green chili as it is more tender after roasting.  Let me tell you that a bowl of that green chili with pork, plus fry bread, would make a complete meal in itself.  However, while grandpa Shelly did make his own fry bread, that is not an option nowadays.  But hey, get some fluffy housemade biscuits instead!

 

 

 

 

Pork Green Chili and Country Gravy.

 

A huge condiment selection at every table.

 

But I digress, the Greek salad came loaded with Romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, black olives, roasted chicken, red onions, pepperoncini, feta cheese and the creamiest, smoothest dressing.  Every bite was a new taste sensation due to the ingredient combinations the fork picked up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roy and I are so looking forward to going back and trying out many of the other menu items, like the burgers (1/4 lb. pounders).  One of the waitresses walked by carrying a cheeseburger plate; the burger was actually sitting out the sides of the bun and about an inch thick.  My eyes popped, and you know no one was doing a 1980’s, “Where’s the beef?”, yell.

 

Speaking of the wait staff, the second you walk in, you are greeted with a welcoming and friendly, “Come on in, and sit anywhere you like”.  Joshua opened up the building to make it roomier, airier and the sunlight allowed to brighten up every corner. We sat at the “Grandpa Shelly Memorial Table”, and felt honored, and yet also felt like he was there to make sure we were happy.  The staff are very attentive; depending on experience, they start at the bottom and are trained in every skill needed in a restaurant.  That way, there is always someone to step in when a staff member needs off.

 

So, if you want really good, I mean really good food, welcoming and comfortable atmosphere, a staff who cares about your needs, then you must go to The Lunch Box. If you want to hear more in-depth history, Joshua Robinson will not be shy about pulling up a chair and happily chat with you.

Mary Cokenour

 

 

Banger’s Bar and Pizza Keeps Upping Their Food Game.

 Banger’s Bar and Pizza

 315 US-491

Dove Creek, Colorado, 81324

Phone: (970) 677-2465

Hours of Operation:  Monday thru Saturday, 11 am to 9 pm; Closed Sunday.

 

In every home cook’s weekly developing of meals, there comes a time of, “I am not in the mood to cook!  I do not want to reheat leftovers, that is cooking!  I do not want to microwave anything, that is cooking!  I do not want to cook!”.  When I get like this, the go-to meal is likely a bowl of cereal, Cap n’ Crunch being, still, my utmost favorite. However, there happens to be another living in the home, and my idea of a go-to meal is not on his list.

Choice?  He can fend for himself, or he can garnish favor by calling for take-out.  After many years together (we are about to celebrate year number 21 this October), he knows what foods put me into my happy place.  Off in his Jeep he went, to Dove Creek, and Banger’s Bar and Pizza.  Their menu selections change occasionally, but still offer up the favorites that locals crave, and visitors to the area drool over.

 

While there is a selection of specialty pizzas, the create-your-own gives a wide choice on sauces, cheeses, meats and vegetables.  We both believe the Banger’s Sauce is killer good on top of that crispy crust pizza dough with an Italian cheese blend.  No, cheddar does NOT make it better!  We are talking pizza here, not a grilled cheese sandwich.  Anyway, I tend to lean towards extra sauce on my pizza as an addition, so we always end up doing a half and half.  I can have my “purist” pizza and Roy gets either a half of loaded pepperoni, or veggie, or both. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are also create-your-own calzones, again, with a variety of sauces, cheeses, meats and veggies.  Our go-to, every time, is Banger’s sauce (told you it was killer good), Italian cheese blend and meatballs.  Now the meatballs are not house made, but they use a brand that is close to homemade as it can get. 

 

 

 

Alright, one item that I have suggested, and still would love to see on the menu, is ricotta cheese.  First off, it is one of the basic ingredients for white pizza.  White pizza?  It is as the name suggests, simply a layer of ricotta cheese, covered in hot and gooey mozzarella only, or an Italian cheese blend, plus garlic.  No tomato sauce touches this pizza, and for those who happen to be allergic to tomatoes, or just do not like them, this is a pizza meant for them.

 

Is Banger’s only about the bar and pizza?  Oh no; they have a variety of appetizers, salads, sandwiches and pasta dishes.  Weekly, owner Shelly Jean comes up with innovative specials to draw us in by our senses, mainly sight, smell and taste.  The sauces and dressings are mostly house made, and from experience, we can tell you that the buttermilk ranch dressing, and house bourbon sauce, are so good, you will be licking the plates.  Since I mentioned salad, Banger’s is definitely not chintzy when it comes to portions.  Side salads are larger than the average salad plate size, since they are loaded with cheese, veggies and croutons.

 

Oh, do not forget to order a basket of the house made potato chips; darker than usual potato chips and full of crunchy potato flavor.  You will find yourself ordering a bag to go.  

 

 

Since I did mention the house bourbon sauce, make sure to order wings (boneless or bone-in) and try out this sauce; you will not regret it.  The wings are meaty and have the perfect crunchy texture to hold onto any sauce they are drenched in.  Of course, if wings are not your thing, try one of the other appetizers listed on the menu.  

 

 

 

Wanting to get away from the home for a relaxing night out, and a great meal, definitely think Banger’s in Dove Creek.  The atmosphere is welcoming and laid back, no one rushes you to order, eat and get out, like many other places tend to do.  There are big screen televisions to watch sports, or another type of programming.  A gaming machine area to try your hand at, or even a small area with comfy cushioned seating to just sink into and forget that hard day you had.  Or, do not want to go out, but do not want to cook either, order take-out like we did!

Mary Cokenour