For Dan and Alicia Marker, date night isn’t a streamlined event, it’s a weekly adventure. And after five-plus years together, it’s also become the subject of their popular Instagram page, Date Night Denver.
The couple got together over five years ago. Both were single parents at the time and now, the blended family of seven has become a modern day Brady Bunch (minus the live-in housekeeper). They don’t show their home life on social media, but they do share most of the solo dates and date ideas they have. After years running Date Night Denver, the Markers have dedicated Wednesdays to date night and just debuted their 285th together.
We sat down with the adorable couple a Leven Deli in the Golden Triangle a few months ago to find out how they plan the perfect date, what restaurants are on their hit list, and how they became professional influencers.
So your first ever date together was at Lady Jane in LoHi, how did it go?
Dan: It was a good date, yep. We had our next date like a couple of days later and we did a four-in-one and dated for the entire day. We started with a hike in Golden and then stayed together through dinner at El Five.
Alicia: That gives you a little glimpse into how we roll. We really like to be busy and active. We don’t like to miss things. We are introverts, but we definitely have FOMO (fear of missing out).
So you would say you’re introverts even though you go out all the time?
Alicia: Well, we go out with each other all the time. We don’t have to people with other people.
So aside from Lady Jane, which is special, is there a favorite place to go on a date?
Dan: There’s so many rotating favorite spots. We’ve also got some..we have hit lists, I guess, right?
Alicia: Our best hits.
Dan: Right, best hits, yeah. Good one. One of the places we love going is like a Yacht Club and Brasserie Brixton situation. We’re bad at making reservations because we’re kind of impulsive.
Alicia: Spontaneous.
Dan: Spontaneous. So it’s more like, let’s go over and see if we can get a reservation. And while we wait, obviously, we’ll go to the Yacht Club. Then, you know, see how the night progresses from there.
One of the most common dates that I feel like I’m always like, “oh, you know what we should try to do?” Even though we always do it, we’ll be at a place, like a Run for the Roses or something, and I’ll say, “what if we got one drink and one bite here and then went to another place and did that, and then another place and did that, and just as many as we can until we run out of steam.”
I’m like, “I just created this idea.” And Alicia will be like, “We do this all the time. This is what you always suggest.”
Alicia: But I love it. He’s always creating these types of experiences, and if we can’t do plan A, he’s got plan B. It just really works for me. Like, it is nice to be taken care of.
So after about a year you guys decided to make your dates more public. So what was the first outing that you guys did on your social media platform?
Dan: I actually know.
Alicia: You do?
Dan: Of course. Okay, so the whole story, I had just gotten a new phone finally, from an iPhone 7 to an iPhone 13. So like everyone, I would take pictures of food, but they would be grainy and, you know, not very good.
So we were in Cheeseman Park and we were laying down and just having an epic day. Alicia’s like, “You love doing this research, you love doing this, and now you have a camera. Why don’t we just do this?” And so that night we went to Misfit Snack Bar, which was one of our favorites at the time. We took a picture and posted it then. So that was like our first official post.
And it just took off?
Alicia: We were talking to somebody, I don’t remember how we were connected with them, but they’re like in social media. They said, “If you really want to do this, you need to do 90 posts in 90 days.” And we were like, alright, let’s fucking go.
Dan: Right. We had no idea how to make a reel, and no idea how to do anything. And so we just were like, alright, we’ll try it.
Alicia: We love it. We love doing this. And we love being creative with it, trying to do different kinds of content, different angles, different costumes. It’s creatively satisfying, I feel like, for both of us individually. And then to get to do it together…
Well it’s been over four years and you guys have grown so much. How has Date Night Denver evolved?
Alicia: It changes a little bit every year. Dan and I love to make goals. But we try to be reflective on our practices too.
Okay, so similarly to the 90-and-90 [posts in days] we continued to practice that twice a year. The last time we did it, it was a lot of work and didn’t generate the outcomes that it usually does. Usually it generates like a bulk of followers or like a bulk of fun new collaborations and that didn’t happen.
So we’re reflecting, you know, and maybe we don’t need to do that this year. Something we’re instituting this year is no content bait. We don’t want the essence of why we started this to slip away from us. So now we’re trying to do maybe one a week.
Dan: Yeah, one to two a week is the idea.
Alicia: Which is going well. We don’t want to lose sight of why we’re doing what we’re doing…a healthy balance. It is pretty amazing to see how much we’ve grown in the time we’ve done it. And we still scroll every day through the followers, and we’re just like, thank you so much. Thank you and thank you and thank you. We feel just so grateful.
Do you guys have other jobs?
Dan: I have a full-time job. I work in software consulting, you know, 9-to-5. But it’s a flexible position.
*Alicia previously was an elementary school teacher, but left teaching to do this full time.
Alicia: Dan was like, “Babe, you’re so passionate, I bet if you just gave this your all, we wouldn’t have to pay for before and after school care and all these things. Like, you could kill it if you were doing this full time, right?”
What else should people know?
Alicia: I’m gonna tell you something that blew our socks off, and this is the way I feel like the magic has just, I don’t know, been really generous with us through this whole last five years or whatever.
So we’re moving, and we are not very public about our private life. Like, a lot of people don’t know we have kids. A lot of people think we’re like DINKS (dual income no kids). People usually know we live in Denver, but they don’t know what neighborhood we live in, etc. So we get a DM [from a moving company] in our inbox either the day we went under contract [for the house] or the day after: “Hey, are you guys moving anytime soon? We’re looking for local collaborators.”
We’re like, what are the odds? We were just like, thank you, please, and yes, and more, and yes. So we will be doing a reel about the moving company, packing and moving and all the shit.
How do you pick and manage all the dining out?
Dan: Obviously we haven’t been to every restaurant, but we’ve been to every restaurant on our list, which is an insane thing to say. And our list keeps growing, but we’re able to sort of…
Alicia: We always do have a list, but we do kind of…
Dan: It’s like what are our top 10 places? And it’s like, all right, we checked them off, you know, now what?
Alicia: And another thing I don’t think people really realize about us is like we pay for a lot of our dates. I won’t say most of them, but we post because we want to go to the places that we think are going to be really good dates. It doesn’t always have to be somewhere, like where someone has reached out to collaborate or we’ve reached out to them to see. We do invest in our business and in our relationship and in our passion, you know?
I think it shows.
Alicia: Thank you. I mean, you look at some of the other content and it’s just like everyone’s doing the same exact place in the same exact way and it’s like, what are you giving to people right now at this point?
How do you get introduced to places and what draws your interest?
Dan: It’s a lot of internet research. Early on it was very much, you know, what is Eater saying where we should go, or 5208 or a Westword. It started there, but then it became a little bit more of, you know, the things that they say are the best now.
Now, a lot comes from seeing other people post and seeing the style of food. So when we see something that looks interesting, we’ll take a look. Or, sometimes we’re just really excited. Like, I think the one place we’re excited about right now is Dear Emilia (they have since gone). But because we’re so active on social media, we see most of the things that are coming out.
Who are some of the influencers you look toward for dining advice?
Dan: There are a couple of people that we follow that aren’t big and are leading for us. Like there’s this woman, Christine Malone, and her husband is like the Pizza Guy. They always know the pop-ups and they always know the best restaurants and we see them out a lot.
Alicia: They’re from the New York area as well, and they’re always looking for the same things as we’re looking for. Another thing that piques our interest is when we know we really love a chef, like chef Michael [Diaz de Leon of Molino Chido]. Or when a chef is doing something interesting. Cheyenne [Langis], we followed her doing things around the city.
Also, I have a background in performing and any time we get a message from like the symphony or the DCPA or the opera, or I’m like “we’re gonna do it,” well, we’re gonna do it.
What are some favorite spots in and near Denver?
Alicia: When they opened, we went a lot to Rougarou, the people that opened Yacht Club. I just love that place. Their catfish, their grits, the drinks. Yeah. We really got into that place. We might have tired ourselves out, but…
Dan: I think another thing we liked about them, too, is sometimes… especially when Alicia was teaching, we lean towards going out a little bit later on a Wednesday. I’ll finish up work, we’ll go out for a drink, and by the time it’s 7:30, eight o’clock, the places are closing and we don’t want to be the last people when places are trying to close. So we look for places that are open late. And good food open late is hard to find.
Alicia: We love Semiprecious for their cocktails. We love Pony Up, we just went there on Sunday. They have the French dip, the veggie French dip, and then the meaty French dip. And, like, we can do, like, a whole his-and-hers situation there (Alicia doesn’t eat meat).
Dan: The pretzel is also crazy good. We also like to have places that we date for no content. And so there are places we go to that we’re not going to highlight all the time. Pony Up and Side Pony are places that we just pop into and just silently have a date.
Alicia: Run for the Roses is another place we go to a lot. Get a cocktail in a deviled egg situation. That’s a go-to for sure. We might go to Jovanina’s. We scooter a lot. So that’s our, that’s our mode of transportation mostly is scootering when it’s nice out. So yeah, we’ll just hop on a scooter. Major Tom we go to as a go-to for sure. Like for a special one…well, we make anything special.
See for yourself by following Dan and Alicia and Date Night Denver on Instagram, and let them know where they need to go next.
