Durango Restaurants, Breweries & More

Best Durango Restaurants: Surprising Culinary Hotspots

We’re all about fun facts here. Want a real mindbender? Durango, Colorado, has more restaurants per capita than San Francisco, California. Not quite the statistic many would imagine when talking about a mountain municipality with fewer than 20,000 residents.

Plus, the flavors are almost as diverse as California’s. There are, of course, the familiar fast-casual chains, but for the more culinarily adventurous, you have the options of Himalayan, sushi, Chinese, Italian, French, Mexican, Southwestern, seafood, steakhouses, bakeries, delis, and coffee shops, and the list goes on. From fine dining to food trucks, it’s all here in Durango.

If ambiance takes precedence over a particular cuisine, there are many methods of choosing the best Durango restaurant for your desires. Want a downtown Durango restaurant on the river? You got it. How about dog-friendly with outdoor seating? Yup! A restaurant with a view of the mountains? No problem. The difficulty will be deciding between all the excellent options.

Durango Breweries: Infused by the River of Souls

For folks of a certain age, Colorado is almost synonymous with beer brewing, thanks to mass-market advertising. However, there was a quiet revolution happening in Colorado in the late 1980s when state law was changed to allow brewers to sell directly to the public. They were no longer required to sell to wholesalers, who then sold to retailers.

This new business model allowed breweries in Durango and across Colorado to open brewpubs, where people could sit and drink freshly made beer or cider only a few feet from where it was brewed.

Durango breweries have a secret advantage in the Animas River. “Animas” means “souls” in Spanish, and the Animas River, which runs right through town, is the water source for the area's half-dozen breweries and distilleries. How could beer brewed or spirits distilled with the River of Souls be anything short of amazing?