When Jax Fish House opened on West Pearl Street in Boulder almost 30 years ago, Chef Dave Query was trying to open restaurants that offered the bubble dwellers things that weren’t currently available. Zolo and its red chile BBQ duck tacos, Rhumba and its goat curry and mojitos, and at Jax, a proper plate of freshly shucked oysters and the appropriate steely white wine.
Jax has shucked a grip of oysters over the last three decades. With five Colorado locations, they are consistently in the oyster and seafood conversation, again winning readers’ choice Best Oyster Bar as well as Best Seafood Restaurant accolades in the 2023 annual Westword “Best of Denver” awards.
In speaking with Query, he was as excited for what lay ahead, as he’s ever been. “It’s been a wild ride these last few years coming out of COVID and teetering on the edge of that word that starts with ‘r’ and ends in ‘eccession’. It’s never boring,” Dave says.
"Dana, (Query’s wife and Big Red F Restaurant Group business partner) and I are fully in it and working hard with some new members of the Jax family who are bringing a lot of energy and momentum,” says Dave.
Someone not new, is Query’s longtime Culinary Director, Jax Partner and friend, Sheila Lucero. “Chef She” as she’s known, has been with Jax for over 25 years, beginning her Jax adventure as a line cook at Jax in LoDo after graduating from The Art Institute of Colorado in 1998. “Sheila is such a badass and always has been. She played Division 1 soccer in Florida and came into the kitchen as this total athlete. She’s short, she moves at a thousand miles an hour and has this unwavering smile and bright happy eyes no matter what time it is or what is going on around her,” says Dave. “I was just hoping that she’d stay with us for at least a year, and it’s been a complete dream that we’ve worked together for this long.”
Lucero is a leading member of Monterrey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch’s Blue Ribbon Task Force, a board director at EatDenver, and participates in the James Beard Smart Catch program. Under Sheila’s leadership and from her commitment to sourcing seafood sustainably, Jax received the honor of being Colorado’s first certified partner of Monterrey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch in 2014.
Dave says, “Sheila is at the very root as to the explanation for Jax’s long-time success, and her passion is centered around oysters, as much as anything.”
“I love that oysters can be the perfect bite and that they taste exactly like where they are from. They are a key player to healthy oceans, bays and estuaries, and talking and teaching classes about oysters and all of their attributes and qualities is really enjoyable” says Sheila.
When asked about sourcing and getting oysters to the middle of the country, Dave rolled his eyes. “If you think of airports as harbors and airplanes as fishing boats, Denver International Airport is one of the busiest harbors in the world. There is fresh seafood in the belly of United and Southwest flights daily. How is it that a restaurant in NYC can serve Mexican Tuna or Florida Snapper, or a California restaurant has Alaskan Halibut or New Zealand Barramundi, but because they are on the ocean, it’s legit. We are halfway from almost everything, we are getting the freshest seafood here in Colorado, and we will pay more so these fishermen and women love us and bring us amazing products.”
One oyster connection that wasn’t borne from an airplane, is the long-term relationship Jax has with the Rappahannock Oyster Company in Topping, Virginia, on the Chesapeake Bay which produces Jax’s proprietary oyster—Cracker Jax. Dave tells the story of their first encounter.
“I’m in the Jax LoDo kitchen prepping with Jamey Fader and Sheila in the middle of a hot August afternoon, and this sun-burn faced Virginia hillbilly rolls in the back door wearing Grundens, pulling a red igloo cooler on wheels and says, ‘Wanna try some oysters?’ I think he’s totally kidding and he pulls out these beautiful oysters and starts crackin’ em. I couldn’t stop. Barcats, Sting Rays, all these different varietals they produce, each with a slightly different salinity, shell cup and minerality. They are over-the-top delicious and that was the beginning of an ongoing, long-term relationship with cousins Ryan and Travis Croxton who took over their grandfather’s struggling oyster business. A few weeks after tasting those first oysters almost 17 years ago, we have served Cracker Jax every day.”
Oysters are available in a lot more Front Range restaurants than when Jax first started shucking in Boulder in 1994, and soon after in LoDo in 1996. “It’s a much more competitive endeavor with more and more seafood restaurants,” says Chef Sheila. “And with that, oyster knowledge and appreciation has also increased. Our guests have a really good idea of what they enjoy in an oyster. Whether they call it out by a specific name, species or just a flavor profile, they know what they want. They have also come to know what a perfectly shucked oyster should look like and the proper standards around oyster service.”
Adds Dana, “It’s been an amazing 30 year run with Jax, and we could not have accomplished any of it without the incredible people who have worked at Jax over the many years and who work there today. Good people who have hospitality in their bones. We take a lot of pride in our sourcing and handling practices and have developed a lot of trust with our guests over the last three decades. It takes a lot of practice and consistency to serve really great oysters, every time, without exception.”
March is Oyster Month at all Jax locations—Boulder, LoDo, Glendale, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs. JaxFishHouse.com
Leon Corn is a freelance writer living in Colorado. When he’s not writing, he’s hunting things and enjoying brown liquor.
