The dining area is decorated and the chicken nuggets are at the fryer. The secret seasoning’s been mixed and the salads are aching to be tossed. Ma’s Coleslaw waits in the wings. All Zingers needs to be the newest restaurant at 2075 S. University Blvd. is a bigger gas line.
“If it wasn’t for Xcel, we’d be open,” laments Zingers proprietor Dennis Krieger.
Turns out that the service stretching into the five-plex from the main line under University Boulevard isn’t big enough for the four other tenants — Blackjack Pizza, Darque Tan, PakMail, and the soon-to-open Jimmy John’s — in addition to Zingers, says Xcel planner Alice Borrago-Moravec. So the utility will have to enlarge the line by excavating one southbound lane of South University Boulevard, then boring under the parking area to reach Zingers.
No dates are set for the work, which Borrago-Moravec estimates is three or four weeks away and will disrupt boulevard traffic for a day.
“Stuff like this happens,” Krieger says with resignation. “There’s not much you can do.” So until permits are pulled and drilling dates set, he waits for the gas man like macaroni waiting for cheese — a happy marriage when it happens, cold uncertainty until it does. The delay gives him and son Max, who earned a BSBA in hospitality from DU in 2009, a chance to practice their craft and put finishing touches on the tiny corner restaurant on the west side of University Boulevard. Maybe even to groove a bit to classic 1960s and 1970s rock, which is Zingers’ theme.
The walls are covered with photos and concert posters — some signed — from bands like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers and Jimi Hendrix. Handmade tables have laminated tops made from concert tickets and art cut from vintage albums by Traffic, Jefferson Airplane, Cream, the Youngbloods, America and others.
“We’ve got concert tickets from Van Morrison in Scotland from ’69,” Max Krieger says, regretful he wasn’t alive when the concert happened. “Hey, if they rocked out in the 1960s and 1970s, we have them.”
For information, visit www.zingers.biz or call 303-733-3573.