Poppy Cafe

My partner took me there after he’d had a few delicious dinners with friends and he wanted to share this new place with me. I have to say it was the best food I’ve ever tasted in my life. I had the Risotto with Rainbow Vegetables and the Walnut Lentil Pâté for an appetizer. D had the Buddha Bowl. We shared a raspberry carrot cake for dessert. It was ALL To Die For.
The owner/​chef was there and when we arrived, the door was open to the cold winter-​night air. When I asked if she liked to keep the door open (

The food was delicious! Service great! We had the turkey wrap with pesto, a pizza, and a buffalo burger, & split fried cheese and the free onion rings. We are leaving with happy bellies and leftovers!

One of the more underrated restaurants in Boulder. Great food for reasonable prices and the owners are very nice!

Consistently have enjoyed the flavors and presentation. The prices are a good deal for well composed dishes. We have enjoyed both dinner and lunch here. Last time the owner talked to us for a while and was very friendly. It’s often a go-​to place for us now.

Poppy Café is the closest restaurant to my place of work, so I usually end up eating here out of laziness. That said, they do have many great qualities. The food is local, fresh, and affordable. Not to mention, most of it is very healthy for you and they have plenty of gluten free and vegan options. I have a few favorites, like the buckwheat waffle and the green eggs and ham.
The reason I give them 3 stars is because they are inconsistent. For example…
1) I went for a breakfast muffin and it was uncooked and soupy in the middle.
2) Their websites list two different times for breakfast to start
3) One time I went shortly after they opened to grab a quick breakfast… It took them nearly half an hour to prepare, even though I was the only person in the restaurant and it was basically a breakfast sandwich.
Anyway, to make a long story long, this is a great spot to have a regular order of fresh, healthy, and (mostly) delicious food… but beware of the quirky inconsistencies!

Poppy Café is in the Peloton Project, a grim housing project inspired by monolithic style Soviet architecture. The Peloton is mostly vacant despite having been erected years ago — sort of gives you a Chernobyl feel. The only thing missing is a weathered statue of Karl Marx guarding the courtyard. Surprisingly, Poppy Café has a non-​Stalinesque ambiance. The food is fresh and nicely prepared, and the prices are reasonable. Though a mixed drink will cost as much as meal. Our bloody mary was $ 8 (that’s 8 dollars, not rubles).

A Bland Brunch
The Good:
The patio is spacious and had a nice view of the Flatirons.
The Bad:
Our brunch choices were one of seven omelets, or a gluten-​free waffle. I don’t like eggs, so I got the waffle.
It was tasteless. Totally bland with a mushy-​yet-​crumbly texture that made me think it was undercooked, but it was just gluten-​free. Which is fine I guess, but I’m embarrassed for them that their Sunday brunch menu has only one non-​omelet option, a waffle – which is gluten-​free – and absolutely no pancakes, French toast, oatmeal, granola, breakfast burrito, biscuit & gravy, benedicts… nope, just omelets. Or a gluten-​free waffle. Those are literally your only options. Saddest brunch menu I’ve ever seen. There was no list of sides like bacon, sausage, toast, hashbrowns. Only seven omeletes and a waffle. That’s it. Everything else was lunch – a couple sandwiches & salads. What a sad, sad little brunch menu. I feel sorry for it. No smoothies, no fresh-​squeezed juice, no mimosas or bloody marys… Also, bottomless champagne brunch is advertised prominently on the site, but our server never mentioned it.
My boyfriend got an egg sandwich, which they put on regular bread instead of an English muffin, and it was basically a BLT with an egg. It was as tasteless as my waffle, as were the potatoes, one of which was mysteriously cold.
The Food:
I ordered the waffle since I don’t like eggs and the only other breakfast options were omelets. It was bland and mushy and I didn’t bother eating more than a few bites. Coffee was mediocre, lukewarm, and in a tiny cup.
It was just tragic how literally everything was bland. The waffle, the sandwich, the potatoes, & the toast were utterly tasteless. Even the coffee (which I drink black) was bland. I love trying new places but what a letdown!
The Service:
Our waitress was very friendly but seemed to be the only server — there was one other lady who only brought water and didn’t even take our drink order, and the other girl was swamped. It took a while for our food to come out because our server burned my waffle and had to re-​make it, but she told us, apologized, and took both our coffees off the bill, so that was nice. But why was there only one server for Sunday Brunch? She asked which two sides my boyfriend wanted with his sandwich, and he got toast for me as well as potatoes. She forgot the toast so we had to ask again. It was flavorless, cold, and not even worth eating. The chunky potatoes, of which there were exactly 5, were equally bland. It didn’t even feel like we were eating food. It didn’t taste like food, it all tasted like … nothing.
Also, my boyfriend had seen on their site «bottomless champagne brunch,» but even when he asked about specials our server didn’t mention the bottomless champagne so we didn’t have any.
Overall: No reason whatsoever to return. Sad, boring, limited menu. Bland, tasteless, overpriced food. Lukewarm mediocre coffee. They advertise their food as «farm fresh» but there was no mention of which farm (there’s tons nearby!) and we could tell the arugula, tomatoes & eggs were not farm fresh, and the bread was bland & store-​bought. My boyfriend pointed out it’s currently peak tomato season in Colorado, and gorgeous, delicious. local tomatoes are everywhere – except, apparently, at Poppy. The tomatoes were the completely flavorless kind you get mid-​winter winter at Safeway. They were certainly not «farm fresh,» as is cheerily stated on their website, menu and even the front door. Deceptive advertising is disrespectful to your customers. We won’t be back.

The bottomless glass of wine was what brought us to Poppy… what a magical concept! Despite being a group of hearty drinkers I don’t think anyone had more than 3 glasses so it’s not a strain on the restaurant. And it was just lovely to have your glass refilled and not have to think about it, it made the whole evening more relaxed, like being at a friend’s house for dinner.
I was wary of the food, as I am a big fan of gluten… But it was delicious! I had the mac and cheese and I never would have guessed it was gluten free. Very tasty pasta! A friend got the black and blue tuna over mashed potatoes. It was a nice piece of fish that was seasoned well and very tasty!
There was only one chef and one (maybe two) waiters, but the service was attentive, the food came out quickly, and I never saw the bottom of my wine glass :)
I will be back!

So we went to Poppy Café after the chef/​owner invited us to come back. We were not disappointed and loved the food and service. We had the black and blue tuna and the bass and both were delish! It’s always a good sign when the owners read your Unilocal reviews and do what they can to turn around a bad experience. We will definitely be back!

This is a wonderful café. Every time I have been here the service has been great and the staff very friendly. I’ve been many times for brunch, lunch, dinner and the other night, happy hour. I feel the prices are very affordable for the quality of food served.
I’ve never felt that the noise level has been to high where I can’t hear my husband or the wait staff. The service is excellent as is the food. Jules does a fantastic job!

Very nice place to have a sit down lunch or dinner. The inside décor is chic, and the outside seating is next to a waterfall which creates a nice ambience. Sitting outside or along the windows inside you get a beautiful view of the mountains.
I completely agree with Harmony O that for a new restaurant they run very smoothly. They have had a few months to acclimate but if I didn’t know better I would think they’d been around for years. The service is excellent and the food is fantastic. If you go for brunch I highly recommend the bottomless mimosas! As far as food goes, the Buddha bowl without cheese is my favorite. The sauce, veggies, beans and rice are all delicious. Also I tried the lentil walnut pâté as an appetizer and found it to be very flavorful.
The staff is very sweet and I like that once you’re inside you no longer feel like you’re in the Pelaton apartment complex. A great new restaurant to check out in Boulder.

Time to drop this review to 3 stars. Since I’ve started dining at Poppy I have seen the food quality decline somewhat (veggies in the Buddah Bowl now seem like a bad BirdsEye mix steamed in a microwave rather than the crisp sautee I seem to remember, for example), and now in addition to starting breakfast service at 9 (!), they are closed for lunch on Mondays. It just hasn’t wowed me on my last two lunches. I’ll give it another try in a week or two, but there are a lot of options in the area… lunch has to be GREAT to keep me spending my lunch money…

Dinner at Poppy last night was a real treat. This is our third outing at the restaurant as we had happy hour and lunch there before. Boulder Friends, give Poppy a try. We all ordered different things, lamb, halibut and cioppino last evening. Each entrée was prepared with care and beautifully presented, and delicious. This is not your typical café where the sides are boring. Each one of our dishes came with a side dish that complimented the entrée. The café has a great atmosphere, is small, wait staff was accommodating but did not hover while we enjoyed a conversation with our daughter. Happy Hour was fun and the small plates good too. We all saw one or two more things we wanted to try soon and will go back. We’ve heard that brunch is a real treat.

This place is pretty average. The service was great, but the food is seriously overpriced. The $ 8 brussel sprout entrée gave us 7 roasted brussel sprouts with some walnuts, olive oil, and balsamic. SEVEN! My husband and I were like, seriously? Sure, it was tasty, but for $ 8 bucks, I expected to get more.
What really irked me is that my salmon was raw, and instead of replacing the ingredients on the plate underneath, they heated the salmon and gave me it back over the original plate. In the past, other places that served us raw seafood replaced the entire plate, because well, that food was exposed to the raw seafood and… it’s just not safe. While the rest of the plate was reasonably well composed, I didn’t really want to eat it.
We got a yellow cake with chocolate frosting for dessert that was terrible. The cake was dry and hard and stale. I was kind of in awe at how bad the cake was.
Not impressed and not going back. For that amount of money, there are tons of farm to table type establishments in Boulder that do much better.

I typically stick with what I know but I feel safe about venturing out at Poppy since everything has been consistently wonderful.
I absolutely love taking friends their for brunch and they’ve all loved it too.
The Roasted Vegetable Hash on their weekend brunch menu is seriously yummy (roasted brussel sprouts, beets, golden beets, rosemary and more)

Update to my initial post — Thanks for the question Jules — considering that I reviewed this in November, I’m unable to say what pushed the total bill towards $ 13. My receipt was for $ 12.99 — maybe a can of pop added to the meal made that price? Either way, the salad was delicious :)

We went to Poppy Café on a BoCo Deal right before Thanksgiving, and the food was pretty good. My boyfriend got the tenderloin plate, which had yummy meat and tender roasted potatoes that melted in your mouth. I got a chicken sandwich with arugala, which was decent but definitely something I could have made at home because they used store-​bought bread … I think it was Rudi’s whole wheat, which was sort of disappointing because I expected fresh baked.
My boyfriend said he wouldn’t go back because he felt the food was too expensive without a BoCo deal. I understand that fresh, healthful ingredients can cost more for the restaurant, so I don’t have qualms with the price. What I do have qualms with, and what has ruined the café for me, is the experience I had for lunch today. I went with a friend and had high hopes based on my first experience.
I got the veggies with the tamari/​cheese sauce, and my friend got the Buddha bowl. Both dishes come with rice, but the veggies I got feature the rice. It’s basically 75% of the meal (rice on bottom, steamed veggies and cheese/​tamari sauce on top). I started with a broccoli floret and thought it tasted pretty good, then I took a spoonful of rice.
Arrrgh, the pain! The PAIN! I kid you not, the rice was like little rocks. I couldn’t chew! It hurt my teeth — a lot. It clearly had been sitting out for a long period of time because it was shriveled, dry, and hard, hard, hard. I cannot believe that they served that rice! Completely unacceptable. My friend had a small scoop of the rice on the side of his Buddha bowl, and he said that his rice was a combination of hard and normal … still not enjoyable to chew. When the waiter came over, my friend mentioned that his rice was «very crispy», and the waiter apologized. By the time the waiter came back, I had realized that my rice was not edible, so I told him that it was hurting my teeth and I couldn’t eat it.
To be fair, our waiter tried to rectify by comping some cost … though we paid $ 8.59 apiece, and the Buddha bowl costs $ 10.00, and the veggies $ 8.00 (soo … when the total is going to be roughly $ 19.50 with tax, and we are being charged $ 17.18; not much of a comp…). The waiter also gave us a $ 5 off coupon, which won’t be of much use because it expires December 31^st and we’ll be gone for the holidays.
I don’t want to be a complete jerk; I think I’m just mad because I hate spending $ 10.00 on food that is awful. Points off for it hurting my teeth, too. Sorry for the two stars, Poppy Café, but when I’m leaving hungry because a significant percentage of my meal isn’t edible … that’s no good. I … probably won’t be back.
As far as other Unilocalers, I wouldn’t recommend against giving them a chance … like I said, the food was pretty good the first time we went. However, be wary and maybe more vocal than I was. I should have asked for potatoes or something to replace my gawd-​awful rice. If you are dubious as to my credibility … I promise that I am generally a positive Unilocaler; perhaps over positive. Poppy just struck out for me. I think that if you’re in the mood for this sort of food, it may be a better bet to go to Shine downtown.

The turkey meatballs are fantastic! The serving is so large I can’t finish it. We went in to try it out and were pleased with the quality of the food and the portions size.

It is very unusual that a very new restaurant (2 weeks in business!) would be so together and run so smoothly. And of course the food here is excellent.
So far I have only experienced lunch. All sandwiches are 8 dollars and come with a choice of soup or salad. My vegetarian sandwich with white cheddar cheese, avocado, sprouts, and tomato on whole wheat (tasted like fresh-​baked) was huge and delicious. Accompanying salad was also a generous portion, and all ingredients are grown in Boulder County. Farm to table is their focus here. Coffee was quite amazing too. I like that they have stevia available as an alternative to sugar for iced tea and coffee.
They do serve breakfast and dinner too. And I’m hearing there’s brunch here on the weekends. It is located at the far eastern end of the Peloton complex. There is parking adjacent to it. I like the waterfall on the edge of pleasant outdoor patio too. Service is friendly and efficient.
Basically, there is nothing for me not to like at the Poppy Café.