Shanna Henkel can dish it out with the best of them. Piping hot, with a side of wheat toast and two country-fresh eggs.
“If it helps us get awesome talent, then I would name a breakfast burrito after awesome talent,” Henkel told me Monday, a devious chuckle forming under her breath. “I’m not above that.”
The Akili Smith Jr. Omelet?
Where does it end?
Better question: When can we dig in?
“I love seeing community support behind awesome new talent that is maybe headed our way,” said Henkel, a CU alum who’s been slinging Boulder breakfast favorites, along with husband, Ryan, at the Village Coffee Shop for almost three decades. “But no, I’ve never seen a restaurant in Boulder name something after a potential recruit before.”
Oh, The Sink, you naughty boys, you. See what you’ve done? See what you’ve started?
Boulder’s staple on The Hill made national headlines recently when it debuted “The Ju Ju Precision Passing Burger,” a double cheeseburger created in honor of — and eventually served to — Georgia prep quarterback Julian Lewis, ESPN’s No. 1 recruiting prospect for the Class of 2025. Lewis, whose friends call him Ju Ju, visited Boulder this past weekend. He was Coach Prime’s most extra-special guest during a particularly special recruiting weekend for CU.
Henkel knows the Buffs. Henkel knows Boulder. Henkel knows Boulder restaurants. She’s seen a lot of BoCo/CU football synergy over the years.
But that?
That, she said, was a first.
“I would call that unprecedented,” she said of the Ju Ju Burger. “I have not heard of that happening before. But I think it’s awesome.”
Full disclosure: Henkel bleeds CU gold. The Village Coffee Shop, a cozy corner eatery a half-mile from the Buffs’ outdoor football practice fields, is peppered with news clippings of Buffs icons and Ralphies gone by. It’s a sizzling, sensuous, living history museum with a giant grill along one wall and CU posters lining the rest.
You haven’t lived ’til you’ve noshed on a bit of their sausage gravy, thick enough for a spoon and savory enough to bring out the best of breads and meats alike. I rang up Henkel on Monday to see if she’d been approached about renaming that delectable gravy after any of Coach Prime’s latest recruiting targets. Hey, if The Sink is naming burgers for high-school QBs, Shanna joked, she wants a piece of that cake, too.
“Let’s keep getting the awesome talent and let’s have community support behind the awesome talent,” Henkel replied. “I’d never heard of (the burger), but I’m totally behind it.”
Sanders is a foodie, and what he loves, he loves unequivocally. Henkel’s already felt the power of Prime’s palate. The Village Coffee Shop was the site of the first in-person vlog review Deion conducted during his first few months as CU coach, back in the late fall/early winter of 2022 and ’23. He had one request for the Henkels, though: grits, a southern standard.
Faster than you could whisper “N-I-L,” Henkel added “PRIME grits” to the menu. Bang. Done. When Team Deion returned later in the winter to find that their suggestion had become gospel, the Instagram post on the new dish, courtesy of Deion Sanders Jr., reached 12,000 views in roughly an hour, Henkel recalled.
“It was great,” Henkel said.
As a Buff, she also thinks it’s great to see Boulder businesses join the hard sell on a program-changing talent such as Lewis, a 5-star get who committed to USC last August but is … well, let’s just say he’s weighing his options.
And sometimes, the quickest path to a star’s heart is through his stomach, right? When the owners of The Sink got word from CU’s football office that Lewis was a big fan of double cheeseburgers, the story goes, they created one to call his own.
“Juju’s Precision Pass” has a mess of bacon, shredded lettuce, red onion and aioli slathered on top.
“If you see Juju and his family in town, give them a warm Colorado welcome, #WeWantJuJu #MakeHistory #SKOBUFFS,” The Sink wrote on its Instagram feed last Friday.
If Lewis signs with CU, he would become the highest-rated prep QB to land with the Buffs, per the 247Sports.com database, since Fairview’s Craig Ochs in 2000. He’d also pour a bit of cold water on the presumption that Coach Prime is two-seasons-and-done in Boulder, a presumption ever since it became clear that stars such as Travis Hunter and sons Shedeur Sanders and Shilo Sanders are likely done as Buffs after 2024.
As of late Monday, Lewis was still a Trojan, still weighing his options. But the Buffs did land one of the other big fish among this past weekend’s visitors, notching a Monday commitment from four-star Nashville offensive lineman Chauncey Gooden. The 320-pound teen, who could probably take down several “Juju” burgers in one sitting, already had offers from (deep breath) Arkansas, Auburn, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Michigan, Michigan State, Mississippi State, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Oregon, Penn State, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, TCU, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, USC and … Nebraska.
Speaking of the Big Red, Henkel admits she hasn’t heard much from Team Deion since CU drubbed the Cornhuskers 36-14 last Sept. 9 — a game that feels about two coordinators, five years and 60 transfers ago.
She’s seen Deion Sanders Jr. in the restaurant but hasn’t spotted his dad for a bit. Truth be told, she blames her husband on that front. A little. OK, a lot.
“The day of the Nebraska home football game (last September), Coach Prime’s people called my restaurant, and my husband, not me, answered the phone,” Henkel recalled.
Second-hand, the rest of the story played out like this, according to Shanna, via Ryan:
“Coach Prime wants to come in for breakfast, but he doesn’t want to wait in line,” a Sanders rep asked. “Could he come in the back door to pick up some food?”
Ryan scanned the surge of traffic piling up in front of him.
“No,” he replied. “We have a line.”
Silence.
“We did have to have a little marital discussion later,” Shanna recalled, pausing for dramatic, if loving, effect.
Then she chuckled again.
“But I’m all for it. Let’s go. Whatever it takes in the community to bring the best talent to our football team.”
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.
Originally Published: June 24, 2024 at 8:03 p.m.
