This Unexpected Landlocked Colorado City Has Some Of The Best, Freshest Seafood Outside Of Coastal America

The most celebrated seafood hotspots, naturally enough, are near the sea. Think New England and its lobsters, the crabs of the Chesapeake, or Seattle's Pike's Place Market on Puget Sound. If you want seafood at its best you'll want it to be fresh, and if you want seafood to be fresh you'll want it near the water that provides it. What happens if you're in a state that isn't just landlocked, but doubly landlocked, and get a craving for some oysters? Well, if you're in Colorado, you go to Lakewood, 7 miles west of Denver.

The Lakewood area, as its name suggests, has a number of lakes and ponds nearby. That's not what makes it a seafood destination, though. This suburb of 150,000 people is home to a unique market that local radio station K99 called "the best place for seafood in all of Colorado." It's a local favorite that's garnered national recognition, it's called Tom's Seafood and Gourmet Market, and whether you're a local or a tourist looking to cook up some fresh seafood at your rental in Colorado, it's worth a visit.

Tom's Seafood has sold fresh seafood to the people of Lakewood and the Denver metropolitan area since 1998. It's won annual "Best Of" awards multiple times from the Denver-area newspaper publisher Colorado Community Media, which is a testament both to its quality and its stature within the community.

When you look at the wide range of seafood on offer, it's not hard to see why Tom's is so popular. It's like a miniature version of Seattle's Pike Place Market, but almost a mile high deep in the Rockies, in a thriving, walkable suburb of Denver.

The offerings are never frozen at Tom's Seafood and Gourmet Market, despite being trucked and flown in from all over. Supply fluctuates, obviously, but on a typical day you can find salmon and king crab from Alaska, mackerel and sea bream from New Zealand, and crawfish and alligator from the Gulf Coast. You can bring home fish from Iceland and Chile, octopus from the Mediterranean, and snow crab from Canada. There's so much seafood from New England here you'll think you're in the Farm Coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. And it's all fresh, all just outside of Denver, almost a thousand miles from the nearest ocean. Tom's daily catches offer dozens of different kinds of fish. And it's not just seafood; you can find steaks and other cuts of beef, along with poultry and lamb, and all manner of packaged goods, from sauces and seasonings to sides to fix up alongside your dinner.

Tom's is even owned by geoscientists, which maybe isn't relevant, but is at least kind of interesting. Who knows, perhaps studying the earth helps them source better seafood. Whatever the secret is, Tom's Seafood and Gourmet Market knows what it's doing, and has earned its acclaim as the Denver area's best seafood provider.