White Fence Farm

In a lot of ways Denver feels very metropolitan, very progressive, and very international - not at all the image I would have conjured up as a child. I'm pretty sure that I thought there was virtually nothing between LA and New England except for maybe some farmland, and - oh yeah - Chicago was somewhere in there, too. But as I grew older, I learned that Colorado is indeed a very different place from Kansas and that Michigan is no Montana. Colorado is certainly not farmland, and Denver is about as far away from the farm as you could get, but tonight we did go to a farm: White Fence Farm and Family Restaurant in Lakewood.


The second you hop onto their website, the country music starts to play and, Toto, I don't think we're in Denver anymore. The truth is, quite a bit of it is very Denverish. The people are friendly, the waitresses crack jokes like they've known you forever, and people feel comfortable bringing their families to dinner. But the fried chicken, corn poppers, petting zoo, and abundance of americana scream something much much farther east. In many ways it was like New England Farm with some southern cooking - the architecture looked like something you'd find on a farm in Massachussets or Connecticut while the cuisine could have been designed by Paula Dean herself.


Lauren's family informed me that, while they would probably never go to White Fence Farm on their own, it is a family tradition that brings them back every visit. We weren't alone - most tables seated 10+ and children were everywhere. The food, though covered in grease, was undeniably delicious and filling. And while we did not go to the petting zoo, gift shop, or on the horse drawn carriage ride, I could tell this was more than a restaurant for a lot of people.

It's definitely another side of Denver and seems to offer a bit of campy country to a city so used to the eco-friendly, hipster, modern, and metropolitan.