Eats & Beats: The Lobby joins us at Live at the Vineyards

This portion of the interview above has been edited for length and clarity:

Steve Chavis: Well, great to have you as a part of the Arapahoe Square scene as we're doing really cool things here in this part of downtown and you're preparing something for us at Live at the Vineyards, so we'll get to that as well as taste what you brought us. What's your restaurant story?

Christian Batizy: I kind of bounced around, had a bunch of, was one of those people couldn't figure out which college, couldn't figure out what I wanted to do exactly. So after collecting a couple of degrees, I eventually just landed myself into restaurants, lived in Boulder, worked at a dive bar down there for a while and eventually ended up at DU where I met my wife, went to hotel school, and we purchased the restaurant about a year after we graduated.

Steve: The Lobby ever since then?

Christian: I've been there since 2012. The restaurant opened in 2009.

Abi Clark: …And your menu is kind of a southern flare to it.

Christian: Yep. That's where I grew up. I grew up in South Carolina so there's going to be a lot of the impact coming from that. What we like to do is take a dish that's traditional to everybody else and then we like to put a twist on it. So we like to take the stuff you see every day and then put a couple random ingredients into it that maybe aren't as popular as what you see on a traditional menu.

Steve: Shout out your chef.

Christian: My chef's name is Roger Stockwell. He came out and came to me, kind of started at a different position. He had had previous chef experience, so we put him in the position. We really, really like him here. He's from Detroit originally. He's the rare chef that wants to cook brunch. That is a hard thing to find. It's almost a unicorn in our industry.

Steve: Why is that?

Christian: It's early.

Abi: It's early.

Christian: Every Saturday and Sunday morning. Those are not the days you're getting off in the brunch industry.

Abi: But he has fun. There's a lot of fun twists with your menu.

Christian: That's the fun. I'm not an overbearing owner. I am most definitely not a better cook than my chef is. So I'll give him a little direction on some holes I think are in the menu, but I let him kind of have free rein.

Steve: There's the tip, you find people that are better than you. That's right.

Christian: That's right. Always, always.

Steve: Alright. Also known for your drinks, your bottomless mimosas and Bloody Marys, which has made some noise in the industry here, what you're doing with it.

Christian: Yeah, so Bloody Mary Festival, we go to it every single year. It's usually around October or so. It's every single year big competition.

Abi: And they're basically like a snack too because they have all the toppings so you can get kind of crazy with it.

Steve: Sounds like vegetables to me.

Christian: And we won Best Garnish at that place with this a couple times. And then as well this specific recipe, this is our Bacon Bloody, it's won awards over the year. We cook a pound of bacon into every bottle of vodka. So no shortage of flavor.

Steve: The Lobby also presenting at Live at the Vineyards this coming August 16th. And man neighbor, it's just good to hang out with you and catch up.

Christian: Thank you very much. It's been great to have you guys next door. We've been here a long time waiting on an empty block so we're definitely, we're happy that you guys are here.

Steve: Congratulations on surviving the dark times.

Christian: Thank you, thank you.

Abi: And being a part of this neighborhood, which I feel like is kind of up and coming, your theory is in the next few years that...

Christian: Yeah, I'm a pretty strong believer that the Ballpark is primed for a little bit of a regeneration, so to speak, over the next couple years. You got some empty spaces and some areas that I really think development's gonna look good. And then the neighborhood's gotten together and really worked on safety and security to make our image down here much better.