Vesta Dipping Grill - How Funny

I just said to Dave on Saturday while having dinner at Zengo, that I was totally over Vesta. Last time we went there for Dave's birthday, it wasn't as good. Matt just went there last week and pretty much said the same thing.

Saucy hipster showing its age

Think back to the summer of 1997: "Men in Black" (the first one) in theaters. Ginger and Scary duking it out for fave Spice Girl. Dodi courting Diana. No one had even heard of Monica Lewinsky yet.

And the hottest restaurant opening was Vesta Dipping Grill on Blake Street in LoDo.

Seem like a long time ago?

It was.

Almost 10 years.

For the better part of the past decade, Vesta Dipping Grill has set a certain standard in innovative Front Range cuisine, scaling unseen heights of trendiness and garnering stacks of well-deserved critical praise.

It had a concept we had never seen before. Hipsters and foodies embraced Vesta, and LoDo hit a new level of cool.

But when the stock-in-trade is staying au courant, high-concept restaurants like Vesta inevitably face a familiar challenge: Stay edgy or risk going stale.

The Vesta Dipping Grill, which has defined itself by its edginess, is at just such a crossroads. The concept, so specific and current in 1997, is getting dusty. And Vesta's once razor-sharp edge is in danger of going dull.

Will Vesta adapt and experience a rebirth of its cool? Or will it take the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" tack, resting on its laurels and flirting with irrelevance?

Some of what made Vesta's dining room so stylish back in the day holds up, particularly the massive, winding bar, which affords drinkers and diners ample room to spread out and also feel close together. The banquettes are also fun to sit in, feeling like private rooms.