Twelve seats, one screen, and a three-hour meal built around a movie about a Guatemalan man who sold handmade superhero shoes on eBay — that's the entirety of Monkey Town's capacity each night at FM Lounge on South Broadway, where the long-running dinner-and-film experiment has returned to Denver for a run through November 1.
The event is the work of Montgomery Knott, who developed Monkey Town in 2003 and produced it in New York for about a decade before taking it on the road, according to The Denver Post. Knott, who is from Denver and now lives in Mexico City, cooks much of the food himself and hosts the screenings at FM Lounge, located at 59 N. Broadway inside the FM clothing boutique. The 2026 staging seats just 12 paying guests per screening across two six-seat dining tables, a sharp departure from the format Monkey Town built its reputation on.
That reputation traces back to a Williamsburg loft salon, where Monkey Town launched in May 2003 with guest chefs moonlighting from Manhattan restaurants cooking multi-course meals while video artists like Miranda July showed experimental work, according to VICE. The project later toured internationally, moving through Denver in 2014, then Barcelona, Austin, Los Angeles, and Mexico City by 2019, drawing more than 6,000 attendees during its four-month Denver residency with MCA Denver, per the Biennial of the Americas.
From a Video Cube to a Single Screen
The signature format for most of that run was a suspended, four-screen video projection cube built to hold large crowds. The 2026 Denver edition abandons that entirely in favor of a single big screen and an ultra-intimate 12-seat capacity per night across a 32-night run, from September 10 to November 1, according to a Ticket Tailor listing for the event. Earlier in 2026, the show was staged in a rehabilitated 1905 mansion in Mexico City, and the Denver run marks its return to the city where it had its first major U.S. touring stop back at EXDO Hall in RiNo, which hosted a successful four-month run in 2014 featuring local chefs from Noble Swine Supper Club, The Populist, and WaterCourse Foods alongside weekly live music, according to 303 Magazine.
FM Lounge owner Matthew Brown described the space as an intimate gathering place for music, art, and creative programming, per the Post's reporting. The venue is built around a custom hi-fi sound system, and it sits on Denver's South Broadway corridor, a historic arts and dining strip that has faced ongoing economic pressure, including the closure of 40-year neighborhood landmark Imperial Chinese in April 2026, as previously reported by Hoodline.
A True Story of Superhero Shoes and eBay
The film at the center of the evening, Sobremesa, is directed by Knott and tells the story of Carlos Díaz, a Guatemalan man who sells handmade comic-hero shoes to U.S. customers through eBay. The film is based on the true 2009 story of Díaz, who ran his footwear business selling to American Comic-Con fans during a turbulent three-month crisis, according to the Ticket Tailor listing. Shot in Guatemala, the film uses English and Spanish dialogue, includes a dozen characters in Díaz's life, and blends mystery, drama, true crime, and non-violent horror, touching on Guatemalan politics, Japanese food culture, e-commerce, and classic art cinema — even incorporating footage from Luis Buñuel's 1929 film Un Chien Andalou.
The screening runs about three hours across four sections and three intermissions. Its original score comes from Mabe Fratti, a Guatemalan cellist and singer described by Coda Music as a Guatemala-born, Mexico City-based experimental musician whose 2022 solo album Se Ve Desde Aquí earned Best New Music honors from Pitchfork.
Five Courses Timed to the Film
The pacing of the evening borrows from sobremesa itself — the Spanish and Latin American custom of lingering at the table in conversation long after a meal ends, a practice that can stretch to two hours on weekends in Spain, according to Audaz Revista. Knott's menu leans into that unhurried rhythm with five paired courses, including Mexican kimchi miso soup, Momofuku pickles with habanero and fresh mint, a fennel salad that originated at a small rustic Italian restaurant in New York's East Village, gnocchi with purslane and sweet potato, and barbacoa sourced from a Chihuahua food truck in Arvada finished with his own spiced polenta, per the Post.
Knott described the menu as traditional dishes from a country that doesn't exist, and said some of the best Mexican cuisine right now combines multiple cuisines — Mexican ingredients with Asian influences and European techniques. He called the overall event more like a home-cooked dinner party with many flavors and ingredients most gringos have never had.
Monkey Town runs Thursdays through Sundays at 7 p.m. at FM Lounge. Tickets are $100 on Thursdays and $125 on Friday through Sunday, with the run continuing through November 1.
