5 Best Restaurants in Steamboat Springs and Northwest Colorado, Colorado

This café's hearty breakfasts and lunches, which are crafted to get folks through a day of skiing or biking, are served in a casual atmosphere that's family—and group—friendly. The most popular item on the menu, and for good reason, is the roster of four eggs Benedict choices, including the "Cowboy Downhill," with smoked beef brisket, chargrilled onions, and pickled jalapeños. On nice days, ask to sit on the patio next to pretty Soda Creek. In season the place is usually jam-packed. Everything on the great kids' menu is $9.

Casual and colorful, Dos Hombres serves the usual variety of combination platters and Mexican specialties, and loads up the plates for low prices. The fajitas and enchiladas are particularly well made, with quality meats and a noticeable lack of grease, and they have an unusually large menu of interesting salads (check out the Cancun version, with pineapple and fried tortilla strips). Service is snappy and friendly, and the staff is accommodating to kids. The margaritas and cervezas are inexpensive, too—they're half-price during the weekday three-hour happy hour and all day Tuesday.

Authentic and family friendly, this Mexican restaurant serves good food in huge portions. Try the chiles rellenos, super nachos, and especially the Chile Colorado: fork-tender beef simmered in a savory red-pepper sauce. The appetizer combo plate is a meal in itself, and to feed an army, order Fiesta Fajitas. There's a second location in Grand Junction.

Between the appealing kids' menu and the memorabilia that suggests Elvis has not left the building, Johnny's is all about fun and family. Breakfast (until 2 pm), lunch, and dinner are served daily, and they are all budget minded and large portioned. The menu is mostly what you'd expect—comfort food like meat loaf and mashed potatoes, burgers, milkshakes, and biscuits and gravy—but they also do an above-average rib eye and some tasty Mexican, as well as a popular list of hot "dawgs." A pie happy hour happens from 3 to 5 pm daily, with $2 off slices.

A restaurant and bar, Massadona is small, homey, and rustic, with a smattering of Western decor items and a mixture of tables and booths. It's also a casual, inviting, and relaxing place to stop after a day of digging around in dinosaur dirt, even if it's kind of in the middle of nowhere (20 minutes east of Dinosaur and a half-hour drive from the monument). The inexpensive steaks go down well with a cocktail (also reasonably priced). They also do excellent breaded shrimp, good burgers (try the bacon cheeseburger), fish-and-chips, and classic Reubens.