Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we give our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. (We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems.)
When I moved to Denver in 1990 from the East Coast, there were not a lot of choices for takeout that weren’t pizza chains or fast food burgers in my Congress Park neighborhood.
But there was a standout: Peter’s Chinese Cafe, on 12th Avenue at Elizabeth Street. Mom and I stumbled upon it while scoping out the area, and ordered takeout on our first night in my newly purchased home.
It’s a tiny little place. There are wires and papers and tattered boxes on the floor behind the front desk, more supplies stacked in a small room next to that, employees trying to keep up with orders, the clattering of pots and pans being scraped from the kitchen down the hall.
The outside is plain, the sign simple. Inside, it’s actually kinda dingy (you might say “well-used”). But that’s small stuff: You never doubted that the food pouring out of that kitchen, seven days a week, was top-notch.
Six small tables are in the front, but most times they are empty. This is a takeout place, first and foremost. And, oh, what takeout. Peter’s menu is massive, four pages filled with appetizers, soups and entrees that include 26 seafood meals alone.
Over the years, owner Peter Chan would grumble, hurriedly, “What’s the name?” when I’d walk in. I’d tell him, and he’d add, “Oooh, Barbara,” fast, with a twinkle in his eye. I was never sure if it was because I was a regular for many years and that was his way of making me feel welcome, or that he never could remember my face or name. He was often front-of-shop, always hurried, harried. Some customers (and employees) would call him gruff.
Chan, now 70, laughed when asked about his reputation as a taskmaster. “I like getting things done quickly, and right,” Chan said.
No time, really, for small talk when so many calls were coming in, so many orders for sesame chicken (and 20 other chicken dishes), or wonton soup, scallion pancakes, egg foo young, chow mein. Steamed or fried rice with that?
It’s always been our family’s favorite takeout spot. My daughter, now 27, recalls often running in for dinner while I waited in the car. (Sesame chicken, always. The secret to the extra crispiness? Double frying.) She also remembers grumpy Peter kindly giving her a gift certificate when she was soliciting donations in the neighborhood for a Denver choir fundraiser.
Luis Angeles met Peter Chan when he was a child, in 1993. He and his sister were trick-or-treating in the neighborhood one Halloween and walked into Peter’s. Chan didn’t have any candy, but gave Angeles money to go across the street to a small market and buy some.
Angeles returned with change.
He’s been working at Peter’s for 16 years now, and is one of the seven employees — along with three cooks, two front-of-house and a driver — who recently banded together to buy Peter’s Chinese when Chan announced he would be retiring. Angeles is taking over the role as manager.
He said the new owners are hoping to renovate the restaurant in the future, and are looking to change the menu a bit by adding more appetizers and getting rid of items that don’t sell very well.
Chan says that although he’s retired, he’ll be dropping in on Angeles and the other new owners to make sure “everything is going right.”
“I want my employees — some have been here 20 to 30 years — to carry on the legacy and keep what we made together,” Chan said. “I want everybody to succeed. They deserve that. I owe them that.”
It’s a hard time for small restaurants. Last month, The Denver Post reported a 22% reduction in the number of them in Denver since 2021. Ridiculous.
I can’t bear to think of Congress Park without Peter’s Chinese, so am grateful to Chan and the seven employees taking it over for keeping the memories (and sesame chicken) flowing. Even if none of them is grumpy.
Peter’s Chinese Cafe is at 2609 E. 12th Ave. in Denver. It’s open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. peterschinese.com