Mother Other, the first brick-and-mortar from The Easy Vegan team, is finally getting a permanent home, opening next Saturday in the Denver Design District at 675 S. Broadway. After more than a year of sold-out supper clubs and farmers-market pop-ups, founders Alexi Mandolini and Taylor Herbert are trading in their roaming setup for a full-on dining room. The restaurant will serve dinner Thursday through Sunday evenings, with a menu built around bold, vegetable-forward dishes and an integrated bar program that treats drinks as more than an afterthought.
The early menu reads like a greatest-hits reel of inventive comfort food: Giarancini, a giardiniera-inspired riff on classic arancini; spring pea and leek dumplings in a porcini broth; Japanese sweet potatoes with miso and black-garlic whipped potato; potato-and-chive pierogi; and rigatoni alla vodka finished with almond ricotta. For dessert, chocolate budino and brioche doughnuts are set to anchor the sweets lineup. Mother Other plans to be open from 4 to 10 p.m. Thursday through Sunday at its Design District address, according to Westword, which also reports that Mandolini and Herbert largely built out the space themselves with help from friends and family.
From Supper Club To Dining Room
Mother Other did not appear out of nowhere. The project grew out of years of grind at farmers markets, pop-ups, and a monthly supper-club series where The Easy Vegan team workshopped dishes and quietly built a loyal following. As The Easy Vegan notes, the brick-and-mortar move comes after an extended run of pop-ups, catering gigs, and market service that effectively served as a long-term test kitchen for the concept.
The crew also picked up serious national attention along the way. Their profile jumped in 2023 when they won season 16 of Food Network's The Great Food Truck Race, a milestone chronicled by VegNews. That win helped cement the idea that the team was ready for a full-service restaurant, not just a stall at the market.
Bar Program Is Part Of The Argument
Herbert will lead the beverage side, which is designed to speak the same language as the kitchen. Seasonal cocktails are built to play nicely with the produce-driven plates, and the bar will also feature house-carbonated vegetable sodas in flavors like carrot, tomato, and celery root. For anyone who prefers a simpler route, there will be cheap beer and shots too, giving Mother Other a mix of craft sensibility and low-key neighborhood-bar energy.
"Farmers' markets are an incredible proving ground," Herbert said, emphasizing that the lessons from that circuit shaped how the food and drink programs fit together. The founders see the bar and kitchen as part of "the same conversation," according to Westword.
What This Means For Denver Dining
With Mother Other, Denver gets another ambitious, plant-forward dining room that treats vegetables as the star of the show rather than a side gig. It slots into a growing local wave of ingredient-led cooking and tight, focused menus paired with thoughtful drink programs. Reviewers at En Primeur and other outlets have pointed to a rising appetite for precisely this kind of produce-driven restaurant, suggesting that Mother Other is tapping into a shift already underway in the city.
