Our Story
Ryan DiFranco moved to Denver in 2009 from Los Angeles as apart of the opening management team for Hillstone / Houston’s Restaurant in Cherry Creek North. After a few years of working for Hillstone, DiFranco decided to go out on his own— hence the birth of DiFranco’s. The concept started as a farmers market booth in 2011 in Denver, CO selling fresh pasta sauces. This was the first stand of it’s kind in the city at the time. DiFranco used this as his marketing to see if there was a market for more Italian food spots in the city. One year later, the small farmers market booth became a brick and mortar on Lincoln St.
DiFranco’s differentiated themselves from other Italian restaurants by incorporating different local ingredients and products from other farmer market booths throughout the menu. Hence, DiFranco’s became the first farm to table chef driven quick service restaurant in Denver. To this day, DiFranco’s continues to use local farms for their produce, poultry, proteins, and many other ingredients on their menu. Ryan’s philosophy is simple just like his Sicilian grandmother’s, utilize ingredients that are found in your backyard to make some of the best dishes.
Today, DiFranco’s continues to utilize these principles in everything they do. DiFranco’s makes most of their food from scratch and from the freshest, highest quality ingredients available. Ryan himself is not always in the kitchen, because he and his partner have moved across the country back to east to Buffalo, NY.
DiFranco’s still remains a family run business, headed by longtime OG employee Maria Luz Manzo and the one and only Patricia Vacárcel Soto. We pride ourselves on being all inclusive and welcome to everyone as we are an LGBTQ+ owned and Latina run business.