Meathead: Justin Brunson Rises Again

by John Broening

Justin Brunson is a big guy—well over six feet and, despite occasional trips to the gym, north of 300 pounds. He has a lush Smith Brothers Cough Syrup beard, a booming laugh, a beautiful smile with white, even teeth, and the stride of someone people make room for. Heads turn as he settles into a patio table at Huckleberry Coffee in Berkeley. He slaps down a package—it’s what we are ostensibly here to talk about. He pulls out the first item—his peppery sliced Brunson bacon. “It’s commodity, but good commodity,” he says. In other words, it is affordably raised and reasonably priced. The other item is what has generated most of the excitement in Denver’s food world: a 12oz prime dry-aged ribeye steak.

A well-put together woman in expensive exercise clothes interrupts our conversation. They talk, sotto voce; then she gets into her car. “Tell that big dumb husband of yours I said hi,” he calls after her, with a cackle. The wife of a former investor, he tells me.

The ribeyes are sourced in Io…