Westminster is the most awkward city in the Denver metro to draw a restaurant list for, and the awkwardness is administrative rather than culinary. The city straddles a county line. Roughly speaking, Sheridan Boulevard divides it: addresses west of Sheridan sit in Jefferson County, addresses east of it sit in Adams County, and the boundary does not run cleanly enough for the rule to be applied from a map by eye. Then there is the postal problem. Mail addressed to Westminster reaches large tracts that have never been annexed by the city, including Sherrelwood, an unincorporated Adams County place strung along Federal Boulevard, and it also reaches parcels that belong to Broomfield and Thornton outright. The result is that a great many published lists of the best restaurants in Westminster, Colorado are lists of restaurants with Westminster envelopes, which is not the same thing.
So the boundary came before the food. Each candidate's street address was submitted to the US Census Bureau's public geocoder against the current benchmark and read at the Incorporated Places and Counties layers, which return the municipality and county a coordinate actually falls in rather than the city a postal carrier writes on the front. Two findings mattered. GQue Championship BBQ at 5160 West 120th Avenue carries a Westminster 80020 mailing address and geocodes to Broomfield city, in the City and County of Broomfield, so it is not a Westminster restaurant and is not ranked here. The Wishbone Family Restaurant at 9701 Federal Boulevard, an address in the corridor where Westminster mail most often turns out not to be Westminster, geocodes to Westminster city in Adams County and is ranked first. Neither result could have been guessed from the envelope, and the second is the reason this page did not simply exclude Federal Boulevard on principle.
What survived the boundary screen was then checked the way this publication checks every hospitality list. Each restaurant's own web address was located and fetched in August 2026, and the page returned had to name the restaurant, publish something current, and belong to the Colorado business rather than to a same-named operation elsewhere or to whoever bought the domain afterwards. That test removed a well-liked Westminster bar outright: the web address published for Aspen Lodge Bar & Grill now redirects to a nursery business in Pennsylvania, and no replacement site under the restaurant's control could be found. Awards were held to a stricter rule still. Three restaurants on this page carry a Westword Best of Denver award, and every one of the three was confirmed on Westword's own published winner page rather than on the restaurant's account of itself. Where a restaurant advertises honours we could not find on an awarding body's list, this page does not print them. Six restaurants made the ranking. None applied, none paid, and none was told it was being evaluated.
How We Evaluated Westminster's Restaurants
The Top 6 Restaurants in Westminster, Colorado
The Wishbone Family Restaurant
The Wishbone leads this page for two reasons that have nothing to do with our own taste. It holds the most recent independently confirmed award of any restaurant in Westminster, and it is the oldest business on the page by roughly forty-five years. Westword's Best of Denver 2025 winner page names The Wishbone Family Restaurant as the winner of Best Homestyle Fried Chicken, and the same page records that the family-owned spot dates back to 1963. That is the awarding publication's own archive, not a claim reprinted from a menu board, and it is the standard this publication holds award claims to. Westword's write-up is also unusually specific about what the plate looks like: fried chicken with a choice of potato, chicken gravy served in a small plastic cup, pickle slices and a piece of Texas toast, delivered with no frills and friendly service. Westword dates the move to the current premises to 1994, so the building is younger than the business by three decades.
The address is the more interesting half of the story, and it is why this entry sits at the top of a page that spends its first three paragraphs on municipal boundaries. Federal Boulevard is the single worst corridor in the metro for confusing a Westminster envelope with a Westminster restaurant, because the road runs the length of Sherrelwood, an unincorporated Adams County census place whose mail is addressed to Westminster and whose businesses are routinely listed as Westminster businesses despite belonging to no city at all. Westword's own archive files the Wishbone under Northwest Denver Suburbs rather than Westminster, which is a fair hedge. We ran 9701 Federal Boulevard through the Census geocoder against the current benchmark and it returns Westminster city, Adams County, without ambiguity. The Wishbone is genuinely inside the city. The kitchen opens at eleven every day of the week and closes at eight every day of the week, which is the most legible schedule on this page, and the restaurant's own structured site data records the price band as the lowest of the six.
Cracovia Polish-American Restaurant & Bar
Cracovia is the most distinctive kitchen in Westminster and the one with the clearest reason for existing. Its own site tells the story: Lester and Maria Rodzen escaped Communist Poland in the 1980s, and after more than twenty years of cooking between them they opened a room where the community could find Polish food, strong drinks and live music. Their son Alan and daughter Jackie were among the first employees. The dishes are made in-house from recipes the family describes as passed down through generations, and the range goes well past the pierogi most Americans expect: barszcz, golabki, housemade sausage, braised sauerkraut, and a connoisseur's section that Westword's own listing describes as running to duck-blood soup, kiszka and golonka, a pork hock roasted to a crisp exterior. Nothing else in this city is attempting anything comparable.
The award record is real and we checked it rather than repeating it. Westword's Best of Denver 2020 winner page names Cracovia as the winner of Best German/Eastern European Food To Go, describes the restaurant as opened twelve years earlier by Lester and Maria Rodzen, and links out to cracoviarestaurant.com, so the business identified is unambiguous. Westword's separate Cracovia listing also records that the publication named it Denver's best German and Eastern European restaurant in 2018. The restaurant additionally advertises recognition from several other outlets and claims to have been voted best restaurant six years running; we could not locate published winner pages for those claims, so this page does not assert them, and the two Westword awards above are the only honours stated here. One practical note counts against it slightly. Cracovia's own website is a working front door that names the restaurant, carries current menus and takes reservations, but it does not publish the street address or telephone number as readable text on the contact page, which is the one place a reader most needs them. The address and number below come from Westword's Cracovia listing.
CD's Wings
The third confirmed award on this page belongs to a wing joint in a strip mall, and the record is specific enough to be worth stating precisely. Westword's Best of Denver 2024 winner page names CD's Wings as the winner of Best Classic Chicken Wings, and the same page supplies the ownership history that the restaurant's own site does not: Digger Schwartz and his wife, Ryan, took over the original CD's in Westminster from two of his former hockey coaches in 2007. That is nineteen years under the current owners at a business that predates them, sourced from the awarding publication rather than from a menu. Westword's separate CD's listing describes a large dining area plus a patio and deep-fried wings available in more than twenty sauces, ranging from mild options such as lemon pepper and teriyaki up to a ghost-pepper preparation.
It ranks third rather than higher for a reason worth being explicit about, because it is not a comment on the food. CD's now runs three bricks-and-mortar rooms, in Westminster, Arvada and Broomfield, plus food trucks in Colorado and South Dakota, which makes it the most expanded operation in this ranking. It remains independently owned and Colorado-based, so it clears the chain test comfortably, but the two entries above it are single rooms whose entire history sits at one Westminster address. The Westminster location is still treated as the flagship by the business itself: its loyalty programme is currently valid at the Westminster room only, which the site states plainly. One small discrepancy is worth flagging for anyone matching records. Westword's archive lists the address in the 80021 zip code while the restaurant's own site and the Census geocoder both return 80005. The street address is the same in every case, and it geocodes to Westminster city, Jefferson County.
Hideaway Steakhouse
Hideaway is the only proper steakhouse in this ranking and the only entry aimed squarely at an occasion rather than a weeknight. It is locally owned and operated by Steve and Terrie Woodward, whose names the restaurant publishes on its own site rather than hiding behind a management company, and it describes its own cooking as a classic American steakhouse approach built on fresh seasonal ingredients. That places it in a category Westminster otherwise has to leave the city for. Everything above it on this page is either older or carries a confirmed award, and Hideaway has neither on the record, which is why it sits fourth. What it has instead is the clearest published operating structure of the six.
That structure is worth reading before you go, because it is more granular than a restaurant of this size usually bothers with and it rewards planning. Lunch runs only Monday to Friday and only from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., a two-hour window that catches people out. Dinner runs 4:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and to 10:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The lounge opens an hour before dinner service at 3:30 p.m. and closes with the dining room, and happy hour runs 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, extending to close on Sunday. The site maintains a news and accolades section; we read it, found no award attributable to a published winner list at an awarding body, and so this page asserts none for Hideaway. The absence is a statement about the evidence available, not about the steaks.
Babajoon's Kabobs
Babajoon's is the entry with the most specific piece of equipment behind it. The restaurant bakes its own taftoon, the thin Persian flatbread, in a custom-built bread oven on the premises, which is a commitment almost no counter-service room of this size makes and which is stated on the restaurant's own site rather than inferred. Westword's listing puts the opening in April 2014 and describes flame-grilled kabobs in the traditional Persian style alongside the house flatbread, in a bright, modern room filled with the smell of spices, baking bread and charbroiled meat. Twelve years at one suburban address on that model is a reasonable proof of demand.
It describes itself as a fresh and healthy Persian and Mediterranean counter-service restaurant where the ingredients are prepared daily on site, and the format is the honest part: you order at a counter, the kabobs come off a flame grill, and the bread comes out of the oven behind it. It ranks fifth because its published record is thinner than that of the four entries above it. There is no confirmable award, no named proprietor on the site, and the operating hours carry an oddity that will strand the unwary. The kitchen is open daily from 11:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., except that it is closed on Wednesdays altogether and opens an hour later, at noon, on Sundays. A restaurant that shuts midweek is publishing a clear signal about how it staffs itself, and it is better to read that before driving to 120th Avenue than after.
One Vietnamese Restaurant
One Vietnamese sits on the road that decides which county a Westminster restaurant is in, which makes it the neatest illustration of this page's method. Sheridan Boulevard is the rough dividing line between the Jefferson County and Adams County halves of the city, and being on Sheridan does not settle the question, because the parcel can fall on either side. Run 8767 Sheridan Boulevard through the Census geocoder and it returns Westminster city, Jefferson County. Run 7570 Sheridan Boulevard, less than a mile and a half south on the same road, and it returns Westminster city, Adams County. Same street, same city, different county. Anyone reasoning about Westminster from a road map rather than from the parcel data will get this wrong roughly half the time.
The restaurant itself is the most modest entry on the page and does not pretend otherwise. It describes itself simply as a local Vietnamese restaurant, publishes its address, telephone number and daily hours as plain readable text on its own site, and puts pho, banh mi and a set of lunch specials at the centre of the menu alongside crispy garlic calamari and chicken wraps. Takeaway and delivery are both offered, and the number of vegetarian options is unusually high for the format. It ranks sixth because it is the least documented business here: no named owner, no opening date on the record, and no award we could confirm anywhere. What it does have is a front door that works, a location we could place beyond argument, and a kitchen open every day of the week from eleven to nine, which for a small independent is not nothing.
Frequently Asked Questions: Restaurants in Westminster
Is Westminster, Colorado in Adams County or Jefferson County?
Both. Westminster is one of the Denver metro's split-county cities, and the division runs roughly along Sheridan Boulevard: addresses west of it generally fall in Jefferson County, addresses east of it generally fall in Adams County. Roughly is the operative word, because the municipal boundary is not a straight line and being on Sheridan itself settles nothing. We geocoded 8767 Sheridan Boulevard, where One Vietnamese Restaurant trades, and it returns Westminster city, Jefferson County. We geocoded 7570 Sheridan Boulevard, less than a mile and a half south on the same road, and it returns Westminster city, Adams County. Three of the six restaurants on this page are in Adams County and three are in Jefferson County. If the county matters to you for a licence, a tax question or a jurisdictional one, put the street address through the US Census Bureau's geocoder rather than reasoning from a road map.
Is a restaurant with a Westminster, CO address always in Westminster?
No. The Westminster postal designation covers ground the city has never annexed, and it also overlaps neighbouring municipalities. The clearest failure we found while building this page is GQue Championship BBQ at 5160 West 120th Avenue, which carries a Westminster 80020 mailing address and geocodes to Broomfield city, in the City and County of Broomfield. It is a Broomfield restaurant with Westminster mail. The Federal Boulevard corridor is the other standing trap, because the road runs through Sherrelwood, an unincorporated Adams County census place whose businesses are addressed to Westminster and belong to no city at all. That trap is real but it is not universal, which is the point worth taking away: The Wishbone Family Restaurant at 9701 Federal Boulevard is on that corridor and does geocode to Westminster city, Adams County. Check the street address; do not apply a rule to the whole road.
Which Westminster restaurants have actually won a Best of Denver award?
Three on this page have, and we confirmed each one on Westword's own published winner archive rather than on the restaurant's word. The Wishbone Family Restaurant won Best Homestyle Fried Chicken in the 2025 Best of Denver, and that winner page also records the business dating back to 1963. CD's Wings won Best Classic Chicken Wings in 2024, and that winner page is where the ownership history comes from as well: Digger Schwartz and his wife, Ryan, took over the original Westminster CD's from two of his former hockey coaches in 2007. Cracovia won Best German/Eastern European Food To Go in 2020, and that page links out to cracoviarestaurant.com so the winning business is unambiguous; Westword's separate Cracovia listing also records the publication naming it Denver's best German and Eastern European restaurant in 2018. No other award is asserted anywhere on this page. Several Westminster restaurants advertise honours we could not trace to any awarding body's published list, including a claim to have been voted best restaurant six years running, and this publication's rule is that an award only the winner can evidence does not get printed.
Why is Aspen Lodge Bar & Grill not on this list?
Because we could not find a working web address that belongs to it. Aspen Lodge Bar & Grill at 8125 West 94th Avenue geocodes cleanly to Westminster city, Jefferson County, it appears in Westword's own Westminster archive, and nothing we found suggests the business is closed. But the web address published for it, aspenlodgebarandgrillco.com, redirects to a nursery business in Pennsylvania and returns nothing about the restaurant at all. A domain that has passed to an unrelated owner is worse than no domain, because a reader who follows it lands somewhere plausible-looking and wrong. We searched for a replacement site under the restaurant's control and did not find one. This publication requires a live web address the business itself controls, which returns a page naming that business, and a social-media page or an ordering-platform listing does not satisfy it. Aspen Lodge is excluded on that basis alone and would be reconsidered immediately if a site of its own appears.
Are there any chain restaurants on this list?
None, by design. Westminster has a very large amount of national casual dining concentrated around the Westminster Promenade and the 104th Avenue and 120th Avenue retail corridors, and none of it is eligible here. Two exclusions are worth naming because they are otherwise reasonable answers to the question of where to eat in Westminster. Tiller's Kitchen and Bar at 7000 Church Ranch Boulevard is a competent restaurant but it is the dining room of the Denver Marriott Westminster, which makes it hotel-operated rather than independent. 5280 Burger Bar at 4301 Main Street in the downtown Westminster development is Colorado-founded and geocodes correctly to Westminster city, Adams County, but it now operates as a multi-location group with rooms outside Colorado, which puts it outside what this page means by independent. CD's Wings, at three Colorado rooms and two food trucks, is the largest operation we did include, and it is noted as such in its entry.
Which of these is open latest, and which should I check before travelling?
Hideaway Steakhouse is the latest, serving dinner to 10:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and to 9:00 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, with the lounge running alongside it. CD's Wings publishes a 10:00 p.m. close on its Westminster location page. One Vietnamese runs to 9:00 p.m. every day. At the other end, The Wishbone closes at 8:00 p.m. and Babajoon's at 7:30 p.m., both of which are earlier than people tend to expect. Two need checking before you set out. Babajoon's is closed on Wednesdays entirely and opens an hour later on Sundays, which is easy to miss. Cracovia is the harder case: its own contact page renders the address and hours through an embedded map rather than as readable text, so no weekly grid could be read from it in August 2026, and the safe move is a telephone call to 303-484-9388 rather than an assumption. Hideaway's weekday lunch window is also narrower than most, running only 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Sources & References
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U.S. Census Bureau
Geocoder: Find Geographies by Address
The federal address-to-place service. Every street address on this page was submitted against the Public_AR_Current benchmark and read at the Incorporated Places and Counties layers on August 19, 2026. It backs the statement that all six ranked restaurants fall inside Westminster city, the split of three in Adams County and three in Jefferson County, the finding that 5160 West 120th Avenue lies in Broomfield city despite a Westminster 80020 address, the finding that 9701 Federal Boulevard lies in Westminster city, Adams County, and the finding that 8767 and 7570 Sheridan Boulevard lie in different counties on the same road.
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Westword
Best Homestyle Fried Chicken 2025: The Wishbone Family Restaurant
The awarding publication's own Best of Denver winner page, read August 2026. Confirms the 2025 Best Homestyle Fried Chicken award, that the family-owned business dates back to 1963, that the current location opened in 1994, and the description of the fried chicken plate with potato, gravy, pickle slices and Texas toast.
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Westword
Best Classic Chicken Wings 2024: CD's Wings
The 2024 Best of Denver winner page. Confirms the Best Classic Chicken Wings award and is the source for the statement that Digger Schwartz and his wife, Ryan, took over the original CD's in Westminster from two of his former hockey coaches in 2007.
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Westword
Best German/Eastern European Food To Go 2020: Cracovia
The 2020 Best of Denver winner page, which links out to cracoviarestaurant.com and so identifies the winning business unambiguously. Also backs the statement that the restaurant was opened twelve years earlier by Lester and Maria Rodzen.
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Westword
Cracovia, Westminster: Polish
Westword's own restaurant listing, read August 2026. Backs Cracovia's address at 8121 West 94th Avenue and its telephone number of 303-484-9388, neither of which the restaurant publishes as readable text on its own contact page; also backs the 2018 recognition as Denver's best German and Eastern European restaurant, and the menu detail covering golabki, barszcz, braised sauerkraut and the connoisseur's dishes of duck-blood soup, kiszka and golonka.
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Westword
Westminster Archives: restaurants, bars and eateries
The publication's Westminster directory, used to build the candidate list. Backs the April 2014 opening of Babajoon's Kabobs and its taftoon bread baked in a custom-made oven, CD's Wings' large dining area, patio and more than twenty sauces, the addresses used for Aspen Lodge Bar & Grill and 5280 Burger Bar, and the fact that 5280 Burger Bar expanded to Westminster from downtown Denver in 2017.
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The Wishbone Family Restaurant
The Wishbone Family Restaurant: home and contact
The restaurant's own site, fetched August 2026 and carrying a same-week generation timestamp. Backs the address at 9701 Federal Boulevard, Westminster, CO 80260, the telephone number 303-465-6204, the founding date of 1963, the published hours of 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. every day of the week, and the lowest price band stated for any restaurant in this ranking.
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Cracovia Polish-American Restaurant & Bar
Cracovia Polish-American Restaurant & Bar: about
The restaurant's own account of itself, read August 2026. Backs the September 2008 opening, owners Lester and Maria Rodzen having left Communist Poland in the 1980s, their more than twenty years of cooking experience, their children Alan and Jackie joining as initial employees, the in-house preparation of dishes from recipes passed down through generations, and the stated intention to offer food, drinks and live music. The unverified award claims on this same page are noted in the entry and are deliberately not asserted.
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CD's Wings
CD's Wings: Westminster location and recognition
The restaurant's own Westminster location page, read August 2026. Backs the address at 7685 West 88th Avenue, Westminster, Colorado 80005, the telephone number 303-467-7700, the published 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. hours, the loyalty programme being valid at the Westminster location only, and the roster of sister locations in Arvada and Broomfield plus food trucks in Colorado and South Dakota.
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Hideaway Steakhouse
Hideaway Steakhouse: home and hours
The restaurant's own site, read August 2026. Backs the address at 2345 West 112th Avenue, Westminster, Colorado 80234, the telephone number 303-404-9939, ownership by Steve and Terrie Woodward, the classic American steakhouse description, and every published service window cited: weekday lunch 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., dinner 4:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and to 10:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday, lounge from 3:30 p.m., and happy hour 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday to Saturday and to close on Sunday.
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Babajoon's Kabobs
Babajoon's Kabobs: home
The restaurant's own site, read August 2026. Backs the address at 1005 West 120th Avenue, Westminster, CO 80234, the telephone number 303-974-5400, the description as a fresh Persian and Mediterranean counter-service restaurant with ingredients prepared daily on site, the taftoon bread baked in a custom bread oven, and the published hours of 11:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. daily, closed Wednesdays, with a noon opening on Sundays.
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One Vietnamese Restaurant
One Vietnamese Restaurant: home
The restaurant's own site, read August 2026. Backs the address at 8767 Sheridan Boulevard, Westminster, CO 80003, the telephone number 720-730-2019, the daily hours of 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., the self-description as a local Vietnamese restaurant, and the menu items cited including pho, banh mi, crispy garlic calamari and chicken wraps.
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Marriott International
Tiller's Kitchen and Bar, Denver Marriott Westminster
The hotel operator's own dining page. Backs the statement that Tiller's Kitchen and Bar at 7000 Church Ranch Boulevard is the dining room of the Denver Marriott Westminster and is therefore hotel-operated rather than independent, which is the ground on which it is excluded from this ranking.
How to Use This List
Rank order here weights evidence over taste: an award confirmed on the awarding body's own winner page, years actually held at a Westminster street address, ownership published by name, and a live front door found, fetched and confirmed to still belong to the restaurant in August 2026. The top three entries all carry a Westword Best of Denver award verified at the source. The bottom three do not, and their entries say so plainly rather than reaching for a substitute credential.
The habit worth taking from this page is that in Westminster the envelope answers neither question that matters. It does not tell you whether a restaurant is in the city, and it does not tell you which of two counties it is in. A Westminster-addressed barbecue restaurant on 120th Avenue turns out to belong to Broomfield. A Westminster-addressed diner on Federal Boulevard, in the corridor most likely to be unincorporated Sherrelwood, turns out to be genuinely inside the city. Two addresses on the same stretch of Sheridan Boulevard sit in different counties. If the municipality or the county is material to you, put the street address through the Census geocoder yourself. It is free and it takes a few seconds.
No health inspection record is discussed anywhere on this page, because none was read. Neither the Adams County nor the Jefferson County food service inspection files were consulted for this ranking, and nothing here should be taken as a comment on any restaurant's inspection history. Hours at independent suburban restaurants move with staffing and with the season, so confirm on the restaurant's own site before you travel, and telephone where a site does not publish a weekly grid. We revisit this ranking as the city changes. If you have eaten at one of these recently, well or badly, the form below is the place to say so.
Disclosure
Rankings reflect independent editorial judgment as of August 2026. Restaurants listed did not pay for placement, receive advance notice of their inclusion, or participate in the evaluation process. Denver Dean's List does not sell placements, badges, or certificates related to this or any other list. No health inspection scores are stated on this page. Municipal and county boundaries were established with the US Census Bureau's public geocoder in August 2026 and can change through annexation — confirm with the City of Westminster if a boundary is material to you.
Know a Westminster restaurant we missed?
Our editorial team reviews nominations for future list updates — typically every 6 to 12 months.