Born and raised in the college town of Boulder, Colorado, chef and restauranteur Dave Query has cooked all over the world, but decided no French bistros could beat the cozy vibes of his hometown.
At 14 years old, Query began working at a hot dog eatery in downtown Boulder. He kept cooking through his adolescence and ended up at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), in New York. Query and his girlfriend at the time, whom he had met at CIA, “traveled all over the country, went to France for a year, lived in San Francisco, New Orleans, and Chicago,” he says, “just cooking everywhere we went.”
After exploring many varieties of American cuisine, Query moved back home to Boulder and began to distinguish himself in the town’s restaurant scene. He opened his first restaurant in 1989, the Lickskillet Cafe, then opened Q’s Restaurant within the famed Hotel Boulderado (the Q stands for Query), before transitioning to working as executive chef at a fine-dining establishment in the area.
Cementing himself within Colorado’s culinary lore took a few years. In 1994, he and his wife Dana founded Big Red F Restaurant Group, which owns and operates 14 locations in Colorado, spread between its six full-service brands. Five of those locations house The Post Chicken and Beer, a bustling concept that is most well-known for its expert fried chicken recipe, alongside a multitude of home-style comfort foods.
HQ: Boulder, Colorado
Year founded: 2013
Cuisine: American Comfort
Units: 5
Founders: Dave and Dana Query; Brett Smith (Big Red F Restaurant Group)
In 2014, Query decided to do a double take of the group’s beer list. “I was just rolling through beer [from different brands],” he says, “and I thought, ‘Man, we should make our own beer.’” However, Query did not want to open a “predictable” brew pub or wing and burger joint. He also wanted to avoid the already-saturated taco and pizza markets.
“One of my business partners, Scott Beck, owned Boston Market,” Query recalls, “so I started talking to him about the potential of where he thought chicken was going … 10 years ago, no one was doing fried chicken.”
Before the current era of Dave’s Hot Chicken and Raising Cane’s, Query says that one could only find good fried chicken in the American South. “I had not heard of a brew pub focusing on fried chicken, so it was hot chicken and cold beer. We thought that sounded good, so we did it.”
The Post Chicken and Beer was created in nearby Lafayette, Colorado, with an attached brewery. Assisted by Bryan Selders of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, the duo won silver at the Great American Brew Fest in their first year of beer creation. Now, with Head Brewer Nick Tedeschi, The Post boasts gold from GABF, as well as other awards from the International Beer Festival, Colorado Beer Guild, and the World Beer Cup. The Post was also featured by Guy Fieri on an episode of Food Network’s “Diners Drive-Ins, & Dives.”
As The Post has proven its superior quality of beer throughout the last decade, fun names are a cherry on top—from the Mentally I’m Here Belgian Dark Strong Ale and Sweater Gang Smoked Lager to the Power of Perception Imperial Stout.
In the brand’s beginnings, Query says, “Our tagline was ‘everyday beers for people who drink beer every day.’ So we didn’t go for these big, geeky, IPAs, and, at first, we didn’t even do an IPA. All of our beers were sort of low-alcohol before that was a new trend, so that they were real light and easy drinking, but also food-friendly.”
Query’s smart move of making beers that wouldn’t fill the customers up before their meals came was a great assist as the brand came to perfect its fried chicken recipe, which is accidentally but proudly celiac-friendly.
Query says that he and his team were “going all around the country and trying literally hundreds of breadings to get our fried chicken right. When we landed on the one that we [decided on], it turned out to be gluten-free, so that was a little bit of a torch that we have carried strong from day one.”
After Query came out victorious from what he refers to as a “lifetime search to find the perfect fried chicken”, he began to curate the rest of the menu.
“We have a great salmon entree, we’ve got meatloaf, we’ve got pork chops,” he says. “We’ve got all kinds of different things that we’re experimenting with, because, at the end of the day, you’re not going to eat fried chicken twice a week for a long time.”
The Post’s menu also features chicken pot pie, deviled eggs, and chocolate whoopie pies, odes to the Southern comfort food that the Querys grew up on. Recently, The Post has begun to lean more into the local ingredients of Colorado, evident in menu items like the hatch chile mac and cheese and Colorado pinto bean dip.
Two years after its initial Lafayette location, The Post opened a second unit in Longmont, followed a year later by locations in South Denver and Boulder, the latter of which they are now based. While the brand’s growth was slowed by COVID-19, The Post decided to switch gears with a split-second move to carry out once the pandemic hit. The Governor of Colorado had passed a law that allowed for the sale of liquor by restaurants, which permitted the continuation of craft beer and chicken pairings but in a takeout format.
The team recovered quickly once indoor dining was reinstated. The Post opened another restaurant in Estes Park in 2021 on Fourth of July weekend on the grounds of the Stanley Hotel, which was the fifth location to open.
The aura of the restaurants’ interiors also helps to remind the guests of the brand’s Colorado heritage. “The ambiance is kind of high mountain cabin,” says Query. “We’ve taken old aspen trees and made lights out of them. There’s a lot of reclaimed woods from the fires that we’ve had here that have been turned into tables and used for bar materials.”
Even The Post’s font decisions help to elevate the guest experience, with Query likening the brand’s typefaces and colorways to “a little bit of that Brady Bunch, Partridge Family kind of vibe from the 70s.”
In The Post’s home base of Boulder, the brand stays up to date with the students of the University of Colorado, especially in the football realm. Referring to Deion Sanders, CU football’s new head coach and two-time Superbowl winner, Query says, “The ‘Coach Prime’ effect was indescribable in what that did for Boulder. We hosted the Coaches’ Show [in 2023] at The Post.”
The Post has something to offer for non-college student diners, as well. Last summer, Big Red F had a biscuit war, wherein the chef from each Post restaurant created a biscuit sandwich that guests could try and vote for the winner.
In the upcoming year, expect more fun and engaging events from The Post, including two launch parties for new beer releases, seasonal menu changes, and tailgates in the restaurants’ parking lots. The Post Boulder is also next door to another Big Red F project, the Velvet Elk Lounge, which doubles as a bar and live music venue. Two of the other locations have planned live music schedules on outdoor patios, as well. Also, The Post will soon be launching a pre-prepped meal kit, where guests can create their own chicken dinners at home.
At The Post Chicken and Beer, the effort and passion of restaurateurs Dave and Dana Query can be felt within the atmosphere of the restaurants and the cuisine, but it shines through in the concept’s award-winning fried chicken and beer offerings.
