Denver, CO
Are GLP-1 weight-loss drugs really rewriting Denver restaurant menus? | Opinion
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GLP-1s, drugs designed to regulate blood sugar, weren’t supposed to disrupt how we eat. They were built for metabolic control, not cultural upheaval, but it’s their effect on appetite that’s been the plot twist.
David J. Phillip, Associated Press file
Drugs like Ozempic are changing the way we eat. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)
Now, if you want to see how drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have reshaped how we eat, don’t look to a scale or a lab report. Look at a restaurant menu.
It was actually back in 2005 that the first GLP-1 drug was approved to treat Type 2 diabetes, but unless you were directly affected, you probably didn’t hear about these sorts of drugs until the more potent Ozempic entered our cultural lexicon. Over the past couple of years, as millions of Americans began taking these GLP-1s — and as appetites have shrunk — restaurants started to notice.
Some of the changes? Downsized portions, cocktails losing their alcohol and protein pushing its way into everything from our morning coffee to ice cream cones. What began as a medical intervention is now rewriting the menu.
I’ll admit, I thought last August’s New York Times story about restaurants shrinking portion sizes in response to Ozempic was just clickbait. Mostly, it was my own ignorance. I thought of the drugs as something only celebrities and rich people were taking for vanity, and I didn’t understand how they actually work.
The reality is that 18% of Americans have taken a GLP-1 drug for one reason or another, and those numbers are expected to grow substantially this year as new pills hit the market and as prices come down. Essentially, these drugs mimic a naturally occurring hormone that regulates blood sugar, slows digestion and signals fullness to the brain, erasing hunger long before that “personal” pizza is finished.
The result is not just weight loss, but also a reset of appetite itself. GLP-1 medications normalize smaller appetites — and restaurants are starting to respond.
“Before, if you didn’t have these gargantuan portions [on your menu], you were frowned upon,” said Brent Berkowitz, COO of Denver-based Olive & Finch restaurants. “The trend is flipping around. Now it’s about quality and flavor over quantity.”
At Olive & Finch, that looks like adding smaller, protein-dense plates to the menu and shedding some of those empty calories. Protein is a key part to all of this, the VIP on the plate to make sure weight comes off without taking all your muscles with it.
“It’s monstrous, the emphasis on protein,” Berkowitz said. “I’ve been on GLPs. You don’t feel like eating. Eating becomes a chore, not something you enjoy. You might have had 30 bites before, now you have 13 bites. So it’s got to entice you.”
Nationally, the GLP-1 era has made its way to the corporate test kitchen, with many chains getting in on the small-portion, high-protein action. Olive Garden added a “lighter portion” section to its menu in December 2025. Subway introduced $3.99 Protein Pockets in January, and Shake Shack is channeling the Atkins days with bun-less burgers on its “Good Fit” menu.
While most restaurants have been discreet about naming GLP-1s directly, Smoothie King wasn’t shy about calling its menu what it is. They created a dedicated GLP-1 Support Menu back in 2024, full of high-protein, no-added-sugar smoothies designed specifically for Ozempic users.
Carrie Baird, partner and culinary director of Culinary Creative Group, which runs restaurants like Tap & Burger, Mister Oso, Bar Dough and Fox and the Hen, gave a playful nod to the drugs on her most recent menu at Tap & Burger. The smaller-portion, higher-protein burgers are under a new section called Green Lean Protein. (GLP – get it?)
“I think the demand is there,” Baird said. “For me, writing menus, I want to make sure I’m making these things available to people who want to eat like that. I want to give them the options.”
Her next goal is to create sugar-free mocktails for her restaurants, as GLP-1s can make alcohol less appealing. So while the sober movement had already been picking up steam over the past decade, these meds might just give it a little extra fizz going forward.
Even after learning more about these drugs, their history and their implications, I’ll admit that my ignorance and stereotyping about who, exactly, is taking them persisted. (I blame ‘The Real Housewives.’) I asked Berkowitz — who has Olive & Finch locations in Cherry Creek, Uptown, Union Station and the Denver Performing Arts Complex, as well as Little Finch on 16th Street — if geography played a role in demand. Would Cherry Creekers, I hypothesized, be more likely to need an Ozempic-friendly menu because of their reputation for being, well, maybe a little more Housewife-y?
Berkowitz emphasized that demand for this type of eating is showing up at all of their locations, but it is strongest at the Cherry Creek and Arts Complex restaurants. Still, even in neighborhoods where image isn’t everything, the appetite shift is real.
These drugs may not have been designed to change how we eat, but here we are. Protein added to anything and everything, smoothies designed to play nice with your prescriptions and restaurants measuring portions by appetite, not tradition. Maybe GLP-1s have done what no menu ever could: They’re convincing insatiable Americans that less is more.
Allyson Reedy is a Denver-area freelance writer, cookbook author and novelist. She is also a former Denver Post food writer.
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A Frontier Airlines plane has hit and killed a person at Denver’s international airport, prompting the evacuation of passengers. Authorities say the man jumped a perimeter fence and ran in front of the plane as it was taking off to Los Angeles.
Published On 10 May 2026
Denver, CO
Pedestrian fatally hit by Frontier airplane departing Denver for Los Angeles, flight canceled after
Posted:
Updated:
DENVER (AP) — A Frontier Airlines plane hit a pedestrian on the runway of the Denver International Airport during takeoff, airport authorities said, sparking an engine fire and forcing passengers to evacuate.
The plane, on route from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff at DEN at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday,” the airport’s official X account wrote.
Neither the airport nor the airline has disclosed the pedestrian’s condition.
“We’re stopping on the runway,” the pilot tells the control tower according to the site ATC.com. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”
The pilot tells the air traffic controller they have “231 souls” on board and that and “individual was walking across the runway.”
The air traffic controller responds that they are “rolling the trucks now” before the pilot tells the tower they “have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”
Frontier Airlines said in a statement flight 4345 was the one involved in the collision and that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff.” It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the crash with the pedestrian.
“The Airbus A321 was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members,” the airline said. “We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities.”
Passengers were then evacuated via slides and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal.
Denver Airport said the National Transportation Safety Board had been notified and that runway 17L, where the incident took place, will remain closed while an investigation is conducted.
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