Alex Seidel opens Roca’s in the former Frontroom Pizza in Lakewood

Gone is the wall of regional sports plaques in this article to remain is the stocked salad bar (with sneeze guards). Roca’s, the newest salvation of a extended-standing Lakewood pizza parlor, opened Thursday for its neighborhood enthusiasts and other returning customers.

Earlier this yr, Denver restaurateur Alex Seidel (Fruition, Mercantile, Chook, Fudmill) and chef Tim Bender (Comal, Osage Cafe) took above the space that had been occupied for much more than 3 decades by Frontroom Pizza. They brought significant plans to update the kitchen area and eating home and overhaul the food items menu.

Now Roca’s is formally open up for company, serving slender-crust, tavern-model and thick-crust Sicilian-design pies as very well as home-made noodles in classic preparations — strozzapreti alla diavola, spaghetti alla vonghole, for instance. The location is cozy and charming, with paper over checkered tablecloths and adequate brass and subway tile to really feel present day.

Go for your preferred comforting pasta dishes, as perfectly as for the reasonably priced bottles of wine, and keep for dessert, particularly thick slices of tiramisu. And go ahead and sidle up to that salad bar, a shock late-pandemic comeback, and an crucial spared relic from Frontroom. (Seidel’s spouse, Melissa, stated it also reminded her of childhood birthday parties at Pizza Hut.)