Denver restaurateur Drew Shader moved from Central Florida to Colorado not for its flourishing food scene, but to play football for the University of Colorado Boulder. In 2000, he was considered one of the top high school players in the state, but, he says, “After a ton of football injuries, I quickly realized that I needed to figure out something else to do.” Outside of sports, Shader had one other passion: restaurants.
That shift in focus led Shader to his first unexpected break into the restaurant world—one that began midair. At age 20, Shader and his friends were on a plane to Las Vegas for a spring break trip. “I sat next to a guy who, at the time, had a bar in downtown Denver, which was really popular and well-known, and he was in the process of opening a French restaurant,” says Shader. By the time the plane touched down, Shader had both invested in the new eatery and landed an internship.
Twenty years ago, when this in-air handshake deal took place, Shader says that the restaurant industry in Denver mostly consisted of steakhouses, and working with French cuisine would be a nice change. This internship was Shader’s entry into the restaurant industry, having worked in construction during high school. “I was a pretty hardcore football player and that was my life,” he says. “So [this job] was my first intro to restaurants and the hospitality world and I was immediately hooked from day one.”
Shader, only recently of legal drinking age himself, decided to purchase a neighborhood dive bar from its bankrupt owner in 2004 after spending a year hosting, working the kitchen line, and serving. The bar, called Atomic Cowboy, had only been open for two months. It’s located in the East Colfax neighborhood, which he says was “an up-and-coming area of Denver, but traditionally pretty seedy, and had turned into more of a place where college kids were renting homes.”
Serving college kids and local residents, the bar soon became successful. After three years of owning and operating his own bar, he says, “I needed something else to keep me motivated. So, adding food, which was really my passion more than the bar, was the natural fit.”
In 2008, he added New York-style Fat Sully’s Pizza to the mix, served by the slice. At first, food was introduced just to sell to the busy bar’s typical customers. Once diners began arriving just for the pizza, Shader decided to transition the establishment. “We went from the dive bar that opened at 4 p.m. to the dive bar that had great pizza and delivered great pizza,” he says.
In 2010, Shader was driven by the food truck resurgence to begin his own side gig. He introduced Denver Biscuit Company, leaning into his roots by serving southern-style biscuits and biscuit sandwiches. He began to sell the biscuits out of the bar as well. “There was really no intention of matching [the three brands] all together,” he says, “but it just worked out that way.”
He opened a second Atomic Cowboy location in 2012, which continues serving up brews, pizza, and breakfast biscuit plates for 18 hours a day.
“There’s a lot of complexity in operating three different concepts under one roof,” says Shader. “But at the same time, there’s a lot of benefits. We serve breakfast, lunch, dinner, we go through happy hours, we go through late night. We are kind of a one-stop-shop for whatever you’re looking for.”
Today, Atomic Cowboy catches the attention of customers with its flashy neon signs and kitschy decor. The interior is a combination of alien and Western themes, with an all-around retro look and splashes of the brand’s signature bright red. The aesthetic, imagery, and name came from the original owner, but Shader says “We’ve just run with it over the last 20 years.”
On the exterior brick of the original Atomic Cowboy location hangs a crimson neon sign featuring the brand’s logo—the letters ‘AC’ underneath two rolling pins crossed like an X. “I love raw neon,” says Shader. “I found a great artist here in Denver who does raw neon, so we’ve always done a lot with that. We’ve just expanded upon the original Western and alien vibe.”
Over the years, the menu has expanded greatly. The Fat Sully’s menu now features a lineup of late-night favorites, such as chicken wings, tenders, and the brand’s show-stopping Lights Out Burger, rated Denver’s Best Burger by Westword. Denver Biscuit Company was also voted Westword’s Readers’ Choice Best Breakfast in Denver 2024, and the menu includes a variety of takes on the classic biscuit sandwich, incorporating French toast, Korean BBQ, and a Cuban sandwich among its many offerings.
Shader says that the cuisine innovation was spurred on by his motivation to make great and fun food. “How great can we make this one slice?” he says. “That’s how we’ve taken everything along the way. We were going to make a biscuit, and do three or four biscuit sandwiches, but every piece on [the biscuit had] to be amazing. That’s how it started, and that’s how it’s continued.”
Everything is made in-house, from the biscuit batter to the pizza dough. On this, Shader says, “We talk about simple perfection internally, and that’s kind of been the backbone of it.”
In 2013, Atomic Cowboy was featured in Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.” In the episode, Fieri is led through the entire biscuit creation process, from stirring in the buttermilk to serving up a house-made sausage gravy-splattered plate. The national spotlight only reinforced Shader’s commitment to perfecting the food behind the fame.
Shader consulted with a baker for two years to develop the biscuit and the pizza dough. “I’m definitely not a chef, and I don’t pretend to be,” says Shader. “I just feel like I know what’s good, what people like, and that’s been a thread throughout. I’ve worked with great chefs along the way to make the menu what it is today.”
Atomic Cowboy has also stayed true to its bar roots, and sells a wide selection of Colorado craft beers. Still, the dive bar-turned-popular restaurant is probably the only place in the state that offers a $6 Pabst Blue Ribbon and Jim Beam deal and champagne on tap under the same roof. It also still sells a pizza slice and beer combo, which has been on the menu for the past 15 years.
In 2020, Atomic Cowboy opened two locations in the Kansas City metro area, one of which is still open today in Overland Park Downtown. There are also seven locations in the Centennial State, in Denver as well as nearby Colorado Springs, Centennial, Golden, and Aurora. The brand will also be opening a store in the Denver International Airport by January 2026.
After 20 years of business, Shader says the brand’s success is easiest to manage if he “focuses on the small stuff. Focus on the food, focus on whatever you’re doing, down to the very smallest detail. If you do it well, all that other [success] will happen.”
