Chef Justin Cucci lives, cooks and runs his enterprise to the sounds of a few of America’s most celebrated bands.
The devoted Deadhead owns six Denver, Colorado eating places underneath the Edible Beats umbrella.
He has named every of his working corporations after Steely Dan songs and lyrics.
People discover each meals and music “nourishing in numerous methods,” mentioned chef Cucci.
“Music and meals are a language and a dialog won’t ever cease. We’ll be cooking for 10,000 extra years and making music for 10,000 extra years.”
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A number of different bands affect his model.
His flagship restaurant Root Down is a reference to a sequence of songs on the Beastie Boys 1994 album “In poor health Communication.”
Chef Justin Cucci is the proprietor of Edible Beats restaurant group in Denver. His six eateries are closely influenced by his love of music, most notably the Grateful Lifeless. (Courtesy Justin Cucci/Edible Beats)
Root Down is positioned in a mid-20thcentury gasoline station, constructed from reclaimed and repurposed supplies — whereas the “new American” menu focuses on farm-to-table fare highlighting the most effective in native flavors.
Ophelia’s options music 4 or 5 nights every week, whereas its identify is a tribute to the tune of the identical title by The Band. Acts are booked by musician Ross James, who performed with Grateful Lifeless bassist Phil Lesh for a few years.
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The meals at Ophelia’s affords a nod to southern tradition and delicacies.
Linger is housed in a repurposed, and ironic, area for the vigorous idea, a former mortuary. The menu celebrates world avenue meals.
Root Down in Denver is positioned in an outdated gasoline station storage. (Hyoung Chang/The Denver Submit by way of Getty Pictures)
Cucci was raised within the restaurant trade in New York Metropolis’s Greenwich Village, the place his household ran the landmark Waverly Inn.
His Seventies childhood was formed by meals and by the music of the period. His first musical reminiscences are listening to “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Membership Band” by the Beatles and “Moondance” by Van Morrison on vinyl.
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“I nonetheless keep in mind the ‘Moondance’ album cowl. I believe again and I can nonetheless image placing the information on the turntable. I don’t know the way outdated I used to be, however I used to be at the very least sufficiently old to function a turntable.”
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The Grateful Lifeless was greater than a band to him, nonetheless. The group elevated his ideas of music and artwork when he found them as a teen.
Jerry Garcia, left, and the Grateful Lifeless encourage the meals and enterprise acumen of Denver chef Justin Cucci, proper, who operates six eating places underneath the Edible Beats umbrella. (Getty Pictures and Justin Cucci)
“They’d a really sturdy sense of who they’re and what they do,” he mentioned.
“However I believe they’d a fantastic steadiness of not taking themselves too severely, however at all times being on the highest degree professionally.”
The Grateful Lifeless now affect his idea of enterprise and his want to create memorable experiences for his friends.
“The Grateful Lifeless at all times needed to attach with each single one who noticed considered one of their reveals,” he mentioned.
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“I am nonetheless unraveling new layers of their music. I nonetheless maintain discovering issues that convey me again to them. I wish to join with the individuals who eat at our eating places at that deeper degree, in a approach that retains them coming again to us like they maintain coming again to their favourite music.”
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