Stop by North Denver’s Root Down to sample its special Yelp Eats! Restaurant Week menu. Photo from rootdowndenver.com.

If it seems like Denver’s just getting better and better these days, well, it is. Our music scene is kicking butt (witness all the locals at the Mile High Music Festival, as well as the dozens of excellent Front Range acts at the Denver Post’s Underground Music Showcase next weekend), our population remains educated and fit, and even our architecture is getting more interesting.

It makes sense, too, that our food scene is mouth-wateringly awesome. And not just the schmancy, French-informed stuff that most of us couldn’t afford without regular plasma donations, but the approachable, delicious, locally-owned joints that give our city its culinary character.

Yelp Eats! Restaurant Week aims to celebrate the vibrant diversity of our best eateries by offering $25 prix fixe menus at selected restaurants July 20-26, including the 9th Door, Tambien, Root Down, Duo, Le Central, Marlowe’s and many more.

We talked with Yelp Denver community manager Tiffany Childs earlier today about the benefits, history and uniqueness of the program, as well as all the tasty options it affords.

It seems to make sense for Yelp to do this since so many people use Yelp to choose restaurants.

We have a graph that breaks it down and about a third of the businesses that are reviewed are restaurants, with the remaining two thirds broken down into shopping, spas, hair salons, mechanics and things like that.

How is this different than Denver Restaurant Week?

It’s a little bit different just because of the community that’s based around Yelp. Yelp’s a website where you can definitely read reviews but we have so many people engaged in the community on- and offline. People got to Denver Restaurant Week and talk about it to friends and co-workers, so to participate in this is like word of mouth amplified because people are also going and sharing in online.

Is this only in Denver?

Actually, there are five Yelp! markets doing it this same week: Miami, Houston, Phoenix, Denver and Atlanta. The only other two that have done it in the past are Chicago and L.A. It actually started a couple years ago in Chicago.

Whose idea was it to it here?

It seemed to be a natural fit with our crowd and I actually took it upon myself this time to do it in Denver after seeing its success in Chicago. It just had a great response from the Yelpers and the business owners there. A lot of people love to have a reason to try a new place or go back to an old favorite, and this affords them that opportunity at a discounted price. Plus the restaurants get a lot of new and repeat clientele for the week.

How did you choose the restaurants?

Actually, they’re restaurants that have been represented on Yelp — ones that have a specific star rating for the Yelpers and have gotten a certian number of reviews.

So it’s kind of a best-of or favorites list?

Exactly, we always say that we’re all about connecting people with great local businesses and these are businesses that Yelpers themselves have highlighted as what’s great about the city.

What do you think of Denver’s food scene?

I’m actually not a foodie but I would say that I love to eat food (laughs). I can definitely appreciate the higher-end food that our local celebrity chefs are cooking, but I also love tater tots. For me it’s more about finding restaurants that are small and locally-owned and touting their merits to other people and seeing them do well. It’s more about supporting people who are actually putting their hearts into a business.

Anything else we should know?

It’s really important for people to know they should make reservations as soon as possible. And when you get there to make sure you ask for the special Yelp Eats! menu. We have a special menu you can see if you look at the event listings, and there are photos posted with each listing so you can check out what each restaurant’s offering.

For more information on Yelp Eats! Restaurant Week and a list of participating restaurants and dishes, visit Yelp’s Restaurant Week page.

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