Civic Center Eats, Metro Denver’s largest gathering of gourmet food trucks and carts, returns to Downtown Denver’s Civic Center Park Thursday (postponed after Tuesday’s rain) with its best line-up yet.

Proceeds help support Civic Center Park revitalization efforts through the nonprofit Civic Center Conservancy, which welcomes Westword as the 2015 presenting sponsor of Civic Center Eats.

“Civic Center Eats’ return is a sure sign that spring has arrived in Denver and summer isn’t too far behind,” said Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, Civic Center Conservancy executive director. “We’re grateful to the attendees, vendors and sponsors who have made Civic Center Eats a beloved community tradition. People make parks, and Civic Center Eats continues to revitalize Civic Center Park through positive activation and community engagement in this historic urban oasis’ future.”

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays  through Oct. 8 (excluding June 4; Sept. 3 and 8), Civic Center Eats provides an opportunity for downtown employees, residents, and visitors to experience the architectural, horticultural and historic beauty of Civic Center, enjoy an outdoor lunch, listen to live music and connect with the community. Shaded seating is provided.

Event information – including the vendor and band line-ups – is available at www.CivicCenterConservancy.org.

Colorado Harvest Company presents a fundraiser for Levitt Pavilion Denver, featuring live music, a crayfish boil, silent auction and the opportunity to win two tickets to the sold-out July 4 Grateful Dead “Fare Thee Well” show in Chicago with travel package.

The event takes place at noon May 16 at The Park House, 1515 Madison St. A $20 donation at the door is requested. All proceeds benefit the Levitt Pavilion Denver project. Tickets can be purchased at www.imbibe-events.com/crayfish.

Each $20 donation includes one event ticket and one chance to choose the winning balloon containing two tickets to the sold out July 4 Grateful Dead “Fare Thee Well” show in Chicago. Travel package includes two round-trip plane tickets courtesy of Southwest Airlines, one night in a downtown Chicago hotel and two tickets to the official after-party.

The event also features a silent auction to be held both online and as a live event. A link to the online auction will be posted Saturday at www.levittdenver.org.

Silent auction highlights include: VIP Red Rocks for Trampled by Turtles and Elephant Revival (VIP backstage tour and private backstage dinner for two), Live Nation tickets, massage and spa services, UMS tickets, a signed hockey stick from the Colorado Avalanche, fine art and jewelry, gift baskets and certificates, one week at a resort in Kauai and more to be announced at the event.

Live music begins at 1 p.m. featuring: Chris Dismuke Music, Whiskey Treats, Zydecoasters , Dover Prose (headlining inside at night), with special guests the Colorado Blues Society Youth All-Stars.

Levitt Pavilion Denver will provide 50 free concerts a year featuring local, national and international musicians, with an emphasis on creative and diverse programming.  For more information visit www.levittdenver.org.

From blintzes to challah, beer brewing to tree planting, the Hazon and Robert E. Loup Jewish Community Center’s annual Celebrate Festival offers something for all ages and interests.

This year’s festival is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 17  at JCC Denver, 350 S. Dahlia St. The cost is $5 per person in advance, $7 at the door, with free admission for children age 2 and under.

The celebration of community, food and family features a full day of do-it-yourself workshops, family programs, food demos and a farmer’s market. The festival honors the Jewish Food Movement, which aims to inspire Jews to lead lives of faith, justice, environmentalism and community through their food.

Participants can eat, drink and savor Jewish culture at workshops such as the Wheat/Barley Harvest, which celebrates Shavuot – the day the Torah was received and the concluding festival of the grain harvest in ancient Israel.

The Challah Workshop takes people on a hands-on journey through the world of challah, from mixing dough to braiding to using allergy-conscious ingredients. Another workshop explores what “kosher” means in a world with GMOs, factory farms and allergies.

Children can experience Ranch Camp, where they’ll meet a llama, goats and chickens. And festival-goers will be able contribute their interpretations of community and family in a daylong communal art project.

The JCC fitness center will feature special programming as part of the festival, such as aquafit, Zumba and yoga classes. The Mizel Arts and Culture Center at the JCC will host a special screening of “Streit’s: Matzo and The American Dream,” a film that tells the story of the Streit’s Matzo factory on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which opened in 1925.

JCC also is partnering with nearby Ekar Farm – Denver’s urban Jewish farm – for a breakfast event at 8:30 a.m. that includes touring the farm, planting seeds and connecting to Jewish values.

For more information, go to

http://http//hazon.org/calendar/hazon-food-festival-colorado/ or http://http//www.denverjcc.org/celebratefest/.

Eavesdropping on a woman: “Holy cow! It must be ‘GQ’ Monday on the 16th Street Mall. Good looking men everywhere.”

Cinco de Mayo, the best excuse to have a margarita and Mexican fare, will be celebrated con mucho gusto around town on Tuesday.

Here’s a roundup of places saying, ‘Si’ to Cinco:

* Tamayo, celebrated Chef Richard Sandoval’s modern Mexican restaurant on historic Larimer Square (1400 Larimer St. (www.richardsandoval.com) will be celebrating Cinco de Mayo today and Tuesday. Featuring five-dollar margaritas (serrano, strawberry, mango, tamarind or traditional), $10 shots of Sandoval’s Patron Select Barrel Anejo and $10 Sandoval Patron Select Barrel Anejo Margaritas. Also try the newly launched Test Kitchen: Guadalajara menu that includes a light heirloom salad, hearty lamb belly carnitas and more.

* Bust out your sombrero for Cinco de Drinko festivities at ViewHouse Centennial (7101 S. Clinton St. www.viewhouse.com) and ViewHouse Ballpark (2015 Market St. www.viewhouse.com). Both locations are hosting Cinco de Mayo festivities beginning today and Tuesday. Specials include five Corona Buckets for $20, $5 Corona bottles, five-dollar VH margaritas and three chicken tacos for eight dollars.

* Celebrate Cinco de Mayo today and Tuesday at Zengo (1610 Little Raven St., Riverfront Park, – www.richardsandoval.com) where five-dollar Margaritas or a $10 shot of Richard Sandoval’s Patron Select Barrel Anejo and a $10 Richard Sandoval’s Patron Select Barrel Anejo Margarita. Reservations are recommended, call 720-904-0965.

* Punch Bowl Social (65 Broadway – www.punchbowlsocial.com/) is offering two-dollar happy hour street tacos, $2 Tecate beers, plus happy hour margaritas for six dollars all day Tuesday. Enjoy karaoke, bowling, ping pong or old school arcade games while you celebrate Cinco.

* At Stout Street Social (1400 Stout St. – www.stoutstsocial.com/) enjoy a can of Corona and a shot of Milagro Tequila for five dollars all day. Stout Street Social is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and offers complimentary valet parking at lunch and seven dollar discounted valet in the eveningl.

* The Cherry Cricket (2641 E. Second Ave. –  www.cherrycricket.com) will celebrate Cinco de Mayo today and Tuesday. Enjoy a Corazon tequila shot and Ska Mexican Lager, a local brewer, for seven dollars. Each day will also feature a $10 burger deal. For more information, call 303-322-7666.

“Blues from the Red Rooster Lounge,” heard Sunday nights from 9 to 10 p.m.  on 97.3 KBCO, celebrates its 30 anniversary this month.

Producer Cary Wolfson, aka the Red Rooster, came to Boulder in the early ’70s beginning his radio career at local community Boulder radio station KGNU. He served as a DJ, music director and director of the station’s radio training program. While possessed of wildly eclectic musical knowledge, Cary made his mark on behalf of the blues, the bedrock of most of America’s best popular music. He helped found KGNU’s still-running “Blues Legacy” where he created the character of the Red Rooster, a music-loving hipster who spins the hottest and duskiest discs.

In May of 1985 Wolfson moved the program to 97.3 KBCO. Soon, the program was picked up by the Longhorn Radio Network which distributed it to a small group of stations scattered around the country.  Produced for KBCO every week, today “Blues from the Red Rooster Lounge” can also be heard on stations around the country.

KBCO Program Director Scott Arbough said, “Cary Wolfson comes by his blues cred honestly. He was the publisher and editor of the highly acclaimed BLUES ACCESS magazine for 12 years, beginning in 1990. He is a two-time winner of W.C. Handy Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, presented by the Blues Foundation in Memphis. He created “What Do You Know About the Blues?” which is a set of “knowledge cards” distributed by Pomegranate Publishing.  He has emceed countless live blues shows and has taught a class about the blues every summer since 1997 at Common Ground on the Hill which is a music and arts camp in Maryland”.

“Blues from the Red Rooster Lounge” will be celebrating its 30th anniversary on 97.3 KBCO on Sunday with an hour of highlights from Rooster Music: The First 2000 Years, a collection that the Rooster originally compiled for BLUES ACCESS in 2000. You can find out more at www.bluesaccess.com/No_40/rooster.html.

The League of American Bicyclists has awarded the City and County of Denver with a Silver Level Bicycle Friendly Business award, joining more than 950 visionary businesses from across the country.

“From employee initiated bike clubs to the Bicycle Advisory Committee, which among other things promotes Bike to Work Day, we’re constantly working to find new opportunities for our employees and residents to bike to work every day,” said Mayor Michael Hancock. “Thank you to the League of American Bicyclists for the recognition of the city’s concerted effort to expand our transportation options. We are an organization that not only serves the people of Denver but is Denver and embodies our people’s values of embracing a multimodal culture.”

With the announcement of 161 new and renewing BFBs today in 46 states and Washington, D.C., Denver joins a cutting-edge group of more than 950 local businesses, government agencies and Fortune 500 companies across the United States that are transforming the American workplace.

Visionary business leaders are recognizing the real-time and long term impact that a culture of bicycling can create,” said Andy Clarke, president of the League of American Bicyclists. “We applaud this new round of businesses for investing in a more sustainable future for the country and a healthier future for their employees.”

Promoting bicycle commuting is one aspect of the city’s ability to achieve its 2020 Mobility Goal of reducing commuting travel in Denver done in single-occupant vehicles to no more than 55 percent of employee trips. To do this, the city has encouraged bicycling as an easy option for by providing amenities such as free, secure bike parking and a bike maintenance stand in the Webb garage, as well as incentives such as B-cycle memberships for employees who participate in Bike to Work Day.

Moving forward, Denver will now have access to a variety of free tools and technical assistance from the League of American Bicyclists to become even more bicycle-friendly. These tools will build upon programs slated to come online for city employees, including bicycle commuter classes beginning in May and bike maintenance classes beginning in June.

To learn more about building a Bicycle Friendly America, visit www.bikeleague.org/BFA.

The Denver Center for the Performing Arts hosts the 2015 Women with Hattitude benefit for the Women’s Voices Fund Thursday at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

The event, a whimsical celebration of personality and style, is aimed at helping women playwrights and directors be heard. Recognizing the absence of the female voice in American theater, Theatre Company Producing Artistic Director Kent Thompson established the Women’s Voices Fund in 2005 to commission, develop and produce new plays by women. Now, 10 years later, the Fund has surpassed $1 million and enabled the Theatre Company to produce 26 plays by women (including nine world premieres), commission 16 female playwrights and hire 20 female directors.

Women with Hattitude starts with wine and networking for up to 600 ladies and gentlemen, followed by an Epicurean-catered lunch with views of the Denver city skyline and Rocky Mountains from the dramatic Seawell Grand Ballroom. After lunch, guests will enjoy a performance and the Macy’s Parade of Hats, featuring 50 of the best hats and outfits at the event, complete with prizes.

Top Hat tickets are available for $100 per person. These include a $50 tax deductible donation to the Women’s Voices Fund and preferred seating plus an invitation to a private reception at the event. Individual tickets are available for $65 per person. Additional information, including full event schedule, can be found at www.denvercenter.org/events/women-with-hattitude-luncheon.

From left, Issie Swickle (who plays ther lead role in ‘Annie’), Denise Snyder and Gloria Neal. Swickle helped Neal check out a chapeau for Hattrude at Snyder’s Cherry Creek North store, Mariel. (Denise Snyder Facebook photo)

Colorado Harvest Company presents a fundraiser for Levitt Pavilion Denver, featuring live music, a crayfish boil, silent auction and the opportunity to win two tickets to the sold out July 4 Grateful Dead “Fare Thee Well” show in Chicago, with travel package.

The event takes place at noon on May 16 at The Park House, 1515 Madison St., Denver. A $20 donation at the door is requested. All proceeds benefit the Levitt Pavilion Denver project. Tickets can be purchased at www.imbibe-events.com/crayfish.

Each $20 donation includes one event ticket and one chance to choose the winning balloon containing two tickets to the sold out July 4 Grateful Dead “Fare Thee Well” show in Chicago. Travel package includes two round-trip plane tickets courtesy of Southwest Airlines, one night in a downtown Chicago hotel, and two tickets to the official after-party.

The event also features a silent auction to be held both online and as a live event. A link to the online auction will be posted May 9 at www.levittdenver.org.

Silent auction highlights include: VIP Red Rocks for Trampled by Turtles and Elephant Revival (VIP backstage tour and private backstage dinner for two), Live Nation tickets, massage and spa services, UMS tickets, a signed hockey stick from the Colorado Avalanche, fine art and jewelry, gift baskets and certificates, one week at a resort in Kauai and more to be announced at the event.

Live music begins at 1 p.m. featuring: Chris Dismuke Music, Whiskey Treats, Zydecoasters , Dover Prose (headlining inside at night), with special guests the Colorado Blues Society Youth All-Stars.

Levitt Pavilion Denver will provide 50 free concerts a year featuring local, national and international musicians, with an emphasis on creative and diverse programming.  For more information visit www.levittdenver.org.