Chicken wings & Chinese: This old Denver bar is a true original | Craving Colorado

DENVER • The kids are trying to rein him in.

“Dad,” Piper Levin says, “you’re kind of going on a tangent.”

Forgive Richard Levin, owner of the Piper Inn before the third-generation owners, son Jed and the daughter named after the place. Forgive him — he loves to tell the story of the family’s bar since 1968, the story that is as curious as the food here.

“Sorry!” Richard says above the clamor of a packed house.

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Here at a crossroads on the edge of Denver and Aurora, here in this low-slung joint lit by neon signs and TVs playing sports, another afternoon finds patrons drinking beer and eating what you’d expect at any other dive: burgers and wings.

And then there’s what you would not expect: what regulars swear is the best Chinese around. Others call the street tacos as authentic as it gets, and the carne asada fries as good as The New York Times once said under the headline “12 Restaurants America Loves.”

The menu is eclectic all right. It’s as eclectic as the clientele over the years. Posts recall horse hitches from back in the day. The next rowdy bunch is honored by the Harley-Davidson parking signs.

Richard Levin, 71, could go on forever about how it all came to be.

Jed chuckles and shakes his head.

“The stories get bigger every time,” he says.

“But they’re true!” Richard says.

Or at least partly true, as legends tend to go.

The Piper Inn is indeed legendary, known mostly for the wings.

They go back to the early 1980s here, born by a transplant from Buffalo, N.Y., the story goes. Most popular are the Chinese wings, tossed in a tangy, hot sauce that is traced to the Buffalo man’s successors. From Guangzhou, China, Kenny and Marcia Mah are credited for the “House of Spice” side of the menu: egg foo young, fried rice and orange chicken among other dishes.

However hard to deny a burger and a beer, it’s harder for people to leave here without an order of scratch-made egg rolls or crab cheese wontons. As for the Mexican side of the menu, that’s a more recent development; the kitchen today is largely Spanish-speaking.

“There’s a story behind every food item,” Jed says.

The story starts with Ray Levin, Richard’s father, Jed’s grandfather. “Actually, it goes back further than that,” Jed says.

The story he heard goes back to the 1940s. This was long before Parker Road and Lliff Avenue were paved, when this now-bustling corner was open land.

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There was a farmer, Jed says. “Apparently, he needed something for his daughters to do. So he built a roadhouse tavern for them to manage.”

Apparently, it came to be named for the Piper planes that landed on a dirt air strip in the area. Flash forward to 1968. Along came Ray Levin, who needed a place to move his liquor license from his rented bar that was being torn down for redevelopment in downtown Denver.

For the man who never graduated West High School, the bar business was simply what he knew. And he would continue it even if “it was out in the sticks,” as Richard recalls of the Piper.

“The cowboys would ride their horses across Parker Road and tie them up to a tree and come in and drink. I think a draft beer was like 35 cents,” Richard says. “And my dad, God bless him, his first menu he abbreviated hamburger with HB, because he didn’t know how to spell hamburger.”

Whatever he lacked in wits he made up for with hard work. Ray Levin worked night and day, the constant and ebullient presence yucking it up with customers. He’d never make much money — “He knew how to make just enough to support the family,” Richard says — but he seemed to take pride as the smiling face behind a bar where other hard workers could just kick back.

Things changed in 1981. Ray was in a car crash that badly injured him and killed his wife, the love of his life.

Early into a career in commercial real estate, Richard stepped aside to look after the bar. He figured his dad would recover and be back.

Instead, the man went on to live a much quieter life. He’d never be the same after the tragedy, never again that smiling face behind the bar. “He isolated himself really,” Richard says.

It was an unsettling wave that gave Richard unexpected hope for the business. It was a wave of heavy-drinking bikers.

He’d be breaking up fights, sure, but he mostly left that to the right people he hired: “tatted-up biker chicks,” he says, who were “tough cookies.”

He hired other right people for the kitchen: that man from Buffalo whose wings were an instant hit — never mind his penchant for fighting — followed by the Mahs who responded to Richard’s ad in The Rocky Mountain News.

The bar’s path to unlikely renown was set. The path has mellowed, no more fighting.

“A sheriff’s investigator came in the other day, and she’s like, ‘I’ve never had to introduce myself to you, have I?’” Jed says. “We’re doing all right!”

The vibe is family-friendly under the third-generation owners. Jed and Piper over the years have hosted youth teams and families celebrating birthdays or mourning loved ones.

The siblings’ reason for being here is simple: “It’s family,” Piper says.

It’s their children running around the bar now, Richard’s grandchildren.

Maybe the family’s fourth generation will be in charge someday, Richard thinks. And what a sight that would be for Ray Levin.

“If he could see them running around here,” Richard says, “he would just have the biggest smile on his face."

On the menu

Among Piper Inn’s appetizers ($6-$11), egg rolls are a go-to. They’re listed as “enormous” and “filled” with shrimp, pork, celery and cabbage. The crab cheese wontons are a favorite of co-owner Piper Levin. Also beef wontons and pan-fried potstickers.

Tables often share loaded fries (half $8, full $13). Carne asada are most popular, topped with beef, aged cheddar, onion and cilantro. The Asian fries feature the beloved wing sauce over grilled chicken, onion and cilantro.

Chicken wings are the claim to fame (five for $8.50, 10 for $15.75). If not the Asian sauce, regulars go with the Golden G.O.A.T., a twist on Carolina-style sauce. Buffalo and house-made BBQ other options.

Co-owner Jed Piper swears by the fried rice (choice of veggie, chicken, pork or shrimp, $8-$14). Those choices pair with the egg foo young — egg patties, green onions and sprouts smothered in a Chinese gravy. The orange chicken ($13) is another favorite.

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Burger options ($15) include “black and blue” — blue cheese crumbles, bacon and cajun seasoning — pimento cheese and bacon, another combining grilled onions, pepperjack, bacon and garlic aioli, and another subbing that aioli with a jalapeno relish.

Street tacos (two for $8, three for $13) have been a more recent hit. Choice of pork, al pastor or carne asada and served with onions, cilantro and fresh salsas.

Richard Levin, the owner before his children, loves the breakfast burrito ($13). It’s served all day and packed with ham, sausage, eggs, fries, cheese and smothered with green chile.

He also orders the hot Chinese chicken salad, featuring that Asian sauce and crispy noodles in a spring mix. It’s among other, more traditional salads ($11).