Atomic Provisions, aka Atomic Cowboy restaurants, featuring Denver Biscuit Company biscuits and Fat Sully’s pizza, is expanding in Colorado.

The company’s newest location in downtown Golden — its seventh restaurant in Colorado — is founder and owner Drew Shader’s entry into the booming city.

Now open three weeks, Atomic Cowboy Golden is lively, spunky and serves up a plethora of tasty dishes that will make School of Mines students and Coors Brewery executives very full.

Shader’s first dive bar grew to life on sketchy east Colfax in 2004, but became a late-night staple as a pizza joint in Denver.

“We started as a bar on east Colfax,” Shader said. “(East Colfax) was an up-and-coming area, just a clean, new dive bar in a pretty seedy but up-and-coming piece of Colfax.”

Fat Sully’s pizza was added to the bar about four years after opening.

“We put a pizza shop in the bar called Fat Sully’s, it went nuts selling a lot of pizza and we were off to the races selling food,” Shader said.

About a year later, Shader’s team brought into the bar the Denver Biscuit Company as the “Biscuit Bus” was being developed – morphing the concept fully.

“We serve breakfast, lunch, dinner, late night, happy hour, we span the whole gamut through the day,” Shader said.

“But the food itself was a need that we thought, at the time, because there was no real pizza in Denver in like about 2008, but nothing that we thought was New York style, done correctly with high quality ingredients and (offered) late.”

Shader was looking for food that he grew up with to offer to Denverites and found the southern-style biscuits of Denver Biscuit Company.

Shader recalled he couldn’t find grits and other southern-style food he liked, so he created it, bringing what he thought were two needs to Denver from his past.

After deciding that Denver is maxed out with locations, Shader said Golden was a good choice.

“These suburbs are dense, super up-and-coming and feel great, and with (Golden) being super busy and the tourism amazing, it was a great fit,” he said.

A Dining Experience

Atomic Cowboy Golden is in an old building, a former mortuary to be precise, and across the street from the Golden Hotel.

The community board games and coffee mug rack in the middle of the establishment are quirky and allow guests to find a game and mug that might reflect their feeling, entice a fellow pizza patron to play a round of LIFE with or enhance their java-sipping experience.

Not overtly loud nor crowded, the restaurant is laid out comfortably. In the warmer months, the roofed patio-seating area and the pizza pick-up window on 11th Street will be popular.

As a returning patron to Atomic Cowboy, I was excited to try offerings from the Denver Biscuit Company more than the Fat Sully’s selections, but only because I know the pizza is very good and I had eaten too much of it at the east Colfax location years ago while in college at Metro State.

Perusing the menu, I couldn’t take my eyes off the Giant Biscuit Cinnamon Roll, the DBC hash browns, and the Franklin and LoLa biscuits. Plus a bonus biscuit – a Korean Fried Chicken biscuit new on the menu.

Cinnamon Roll ($9.95) with hash browns ($5.95) – Rating: 5 of 5 biscuits

Simply put, if one were to order these two dishes at 7:30 a.m. and finish both, you’d be good to go until at least 2:30 p.m. or later.

But what was so satisfying about both of these together was how crisp and not-oily the hash browns were — complimented with a side of Duke’s mayonnaise to dip — and the consistency of flavors throughout the gooey cinnamon roll.

A sweet bite followed by a salty and creamy bite worked together and neither over powered the other.

The cinnamon roll was covered in frosting — it looked like a giant igloo — the bottom had a slight crunch and the center was warm and not-doughy tasting at all.

The triangle-shaped hash browns were a pleasant surprise to see, giving uniqueness and a different dimension to a simple dish, but the taste was boosted with a hint of chicken seasoning. Very yummy indeed!

K-MAC (Korean Fried Chicken) Biscuit ($14.95) – Rating: 4.8 of 5 biscuits

This biscuit sandwich was like nothing I had thought to create, but with the blending of Korean fried chicken, sesame mayonnaise, daikon radish and soy sauce with a biscuit, it works.

The soy sauce on the friend chicken was noticeable immediately, but the spicyness of the Korean BBQ flavor mellowed the soy sauce after a few seconds and even pulled up a touch of spiciness in the process.

The sesame mayo was light and creamy. The distinct “crunch” in your mouth from the daikon, cabbage and green onions together brought out familiar flavors like Mongolian Beef or as a side or topping with Japanese sushi.

And the chicken, oh the chicken. The breaded layer was crunchy and the meat inside tender, juicy and hot. It all worked together and was my favorite biscuit.

Franklin Biscuit ($14.95) – Rating: 4.6 of 5 biscuits

How can any other biscuit compete with the Franklin? The Korean Fried Chicken biscuit could over time, but the Franklin, a DBC original from day one, still out sells all three to one and rightfully so.

The spiciness of the sausage gravy grabbed me first, yet not too spicy to take away from the rest of the dish but zippy enough to notice. The bacon layered between the two biscuit halves was crunchy, crispy and meaty, and the cheddar cheese melting underneath the gravy helped balance out the spice.

They’ve dialed in how to make ‘fluffy’ biscuits at 5,280 feet. Similar to the cinnamon roll and hash brown combo, the biscuit is big, and along with the two meats and gravy added, one could easily be your main course along with a coffee or lighter Breakfast Sangria ($11).

Lola Biscuit ($14.95) – Rating: 4.8 of 5 biscuits

This biscuit sandwich reminded me of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The French Toast-style biscuit had two strips of bacon fluting down to the plate like the four feet do from the iconic French marvel. And the biscuit was tasty like a French pastry, too; fluffy, airy, but dense enough to not float away.

Drizzling the maple syrup on top was not only fun as it drained down the bacon columns, but enhanced the sweetness of the honey butter biscuit. The bacon strips and friend chicken pulled the sweetness down to not overload the dish.

This biscuit is a full meal in itself. It’s that filling.

Fat Sully’s 26″ pizza (starts at $23.95) – Rating: 4.8 of 5 pizza slices

This is about as close to eating New York-style pizza on the corner of 3rd Avenue and 14th Street in Gramercy Park as you’ll get.

The red sauce is tangy and fresh. The pepperonis are spicy. The cheese is not oily. The dough is not doughy. This pizza is extremely good.

The 26″ pizza is massive but four hungry people probably could eat it all.

And if you want, you can order a very large slice for $4.50 instead.