RELAY REPORT: COLORADO (DENVER) JULY 24TH, 2026
You don’t need to love breakfast to join the Denver Omelets breakfast club. Truth be told, at least one of the club’s two co-founders is more of a lunch fan. Sure they eat breakfast, but for 47 straight months since February 2022, that particular meal is mostly an excuse to keep a low key flame of community burning.
The Omelets are one of those ideas that, when you hear about them for the first time, you can’t help but shout “wait, why didn’t I come up with that?” Founders Shira Weiner and RB Fast were both mourning the recent loss of some of Denver’s most iconic diners. Not wanting to take their city’s remaining greasy spoons for granted, they hatched a plan. Every month, usually on the third Friday, they’d meet at one of their favorite spots for breakfast. They’d invite their friends, do their best to be there by 7:30 AM, and enjoy a meal and some good conversation before getting everybody on their way for work by 9:00.
Some months, it’s just been Shira and RB. Most times, about eight folks crowd around a diner table or two. But they always hold the space. If you can’t make it one month, you’ll be welcome the next.
What happens when you and your friends gather for breakfast 47 times in a row? You eat gallons of green chile and eggs in every style. You develop strongly held hashbrown preferences. You grow together: raising coffee cups to toast engagements, babies, new jobs, big moves, road trips, (good) break ups and artistic milestones, and offering both hugs in the face of illness, layoffs, deaths,(bad) breakups and any number of annoyances. You can’t imagine life in Denver without the Omelets.
In many ways, the July 24th gathering of the Omelets at Zorba’s in Congress Park was perfectly normal. The old pals once again enjoyed a delicious breakfast and plenty of laughs. Zorbas has been a reliable community stalwart since 1979. They’ve got a great chicken salad and fries if you’re in a lunch mood, and they serve their cheesy scrambles the proper way, in those classic brown skillets that somehow seem older than the restaurant itself. When you order your hashbrowns extra crispy, they know how to do them right.
It was always going to be a celebratory gathering, with two regulars (not in attendance) getting married that evening and two others celebrating a recent engagement. But it was also the largest ever Omelets gathering, with sixteen old friends and new taking up three separate tables. One new omelet drove down from Fort Collins, a new milestone for the front range group. And so, in the spirit of the relay, the group took a second, before settling into life updates, inside jokes and toast in every permutation, to celebrate together. After a quick introduction, R.B. and Shira asked the group to share something they love about their community.
The responses came quick and easy. People shouted out music venues, their kids’ schools, beloved neighborhood parks. Soon the barriers between old Omelets and new started breaking together. Shared connections were uncovered. Not surprisingly, they had more in common than their ability to make it out of the house by 7:30 AM.
For the rest of the morning, the Omelets ate, laughed and decorated their contributions to the relay box. And then, a key element of the experience: they had everybody on their way in time to start the day. When Shira reflects on how this group has stayed together this long, while so many other similar “oh, we should TOTALLY do that” friend ideas eventually dissipate, that’s a big part of the secret. Whether you’re a breakfast person or not, everybody needs to eat, so why not do it together? And by having the recurring time be early in the morning, not only do you avoid the interminable plan-making text chains, but there’s less to compete with— there’s no kids’ soccer games or volunteer shifts and relatively few emergency work meetings. That’s all.
That night, the core Omelets danced together at a wedding. The next month they gathered again, a different diner but the same idea. If you’re reading this after October 2026, know that they’ve now passed 50 gatherings. If you told them, when they first started, if they’d hit that milestone, they likely wouldn’t have believed you. But when you make a space welcome, easy to access and consistent, that’s what happens. Even the simplest ideas can surprise you.
WHAT WENT IN THE BOX:
Forks! Each one decorated (with gems!) by one of the Omelets. And yes, in case you’re wondering, two of the forks say “just married!”
AND WHAT COMMITMENT DID THEY MAKE?:
To yap, eat, celebrate and keep showing up.
IF YOU’RE IN COLORADO AND WANT TO JOIN THE OMELETS FOR BREAKFAST, WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?
Email shiraweiner01@gmail.com for invites, details, or to learn more.
