I grew up in Denver and remember seeing the Billy’s Inn sign at the corner of 44th and Lowell forever — but somehow, I’d never made it inside this iconic bar. The building got its start as a service station in the ’20s; in 1933, Billy and Judy Smith turned…
One of the first things I notice about Lodo’s Bar & Grill (1946 Market Street) is that many of the female employees have curves, and I don’t mean the humps made by a pair of 34Ds over a size-two waist. I mean hips, and asses that explain themselves. This actually…
When I was a teenager looking for trouble, my friends and I would head down to Larimer Square, then the only thing happening at night downtown, and sometimes even venture past the 1400 block of Larimer Street. A naïve suburbanite still in braces, I was always shaken at how quickly…
A favorite bar band of mine from the Midwest sings an audience-participation song about Leinenkugel’s beer that has just four lines: “I like my Leinenkugel’s beer (Woo-hoo!)/So does everybody here (Woo-hoo!)/If you don’t like it, you’re kind of queer (Woo-hoo!)/I like my Leinenkugel’s beer (Woo-hoo!).” I’m typically so drunk by…
My heart goes out to multi-billion-dollar brewing giants MillerCoors (which recently completed its merger) and Anheuser-Busch (which is about to be taken over by Belgium’s InBev). No, really, it’s hard to look small when you are that big. Not that it has kept the beer companies from trying. The Coors…
Tucked into a booth at Benny’s Restaurante y Tequila Bar, we were a couple of beers into our late brunch Saturday when we spotted Benny Armas, whose namesake restaurant has become such an integral part of Denver’s dining scene. Benny’s recently opened a new patio on the Grant Street side…
We card under 40. Did you hear about Washington governor Chris Gregoire? She and her staff went to a bar in downtown Olympia called Hannah’s, and the man checking the door said that the 61-year-old couldn’t get in without an ID. Even after Gregoire’s staff told the bouncer that she…
I didn’t technically jump into a swimming pool full of whiskey Wednesday afternoon, although I drank from one – and my head hurts almost as much as if I had cannonballed off the diving board. No, what I did was attend a little party thrown by Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey (2405…
No OGs, new Gs or dirtballs allowed. No sluts, sports fanatics or dudes who love the sight of their own pectorals. Definitely no one coming straight from the gym. You clowns are not welcome at Lucky Strike Lanes (500 16th Street), at least not according to the dress code —…
Greg Carelli, the owner of Carelli’s Ristorante Italiano, is an architectural artist as well as a restaurateur, and every few years he adds a new “wing” to his place in Boulder. And the most recent, dubbed the Osteria and unveiled this month, is a doozy: a bigger and better bar…
Whether or not the Rockies are in town, the patio at Lodo’s Bar and Grill is always a hit. And unlike the Rockies, the Lodo’s patio is better than ever this summer. Over the winter, the restaurant expanded into the Mattie’s House of Mirrors space next door, and that almost…
Sushi-and-Sapporo Quest 2008 begins when I suggest to Noel that we go to Parallel 17, since I’d scootered by there a few hours earlier and noticed that all the umbrellas on the patio bore the welcoming Sapporo insignia. But I’d been duped. Despite those casual umbrellas, Parallel 17 is a…
It is not yet noon, and already we’re thinking about escaping for the day. But not just escaping from the office — escaping to a very specific spot, our go-to spot when we know we want to meet friends, and don’t want to bother negotiating where that meet might be…
Rarely have we received a more maudlin missive than this napkin, on which Drinking Guy outlined his need for a decent Bloody Mary. He needs your help! Anyone know of a great Bloody Mary bar — preferably where Drinking Guy can make his own Mary?…
Yes, Panzano is a hotel restaurant (it’s tucked into the Hotel Monaco), but chef Elise Wiggins has also made this a favorite go-to spot for locals, who rely on it both fast business lunches and long, leisurely special occasion meals. But the daily happy hour (from 3-6 p.m.) featured in…
It was hot, really hot, and heading to a nearby patio for some nice, cold beers and maybe a margarita on the rocks, or two or three, seemed like the only reasonable course of action. But our go-to spot by the office was unexpectedly closed — for air-conditioning work, ironically…
Sign of the times: The hot evening of July 6, that fateful day when Colorado liquor stores could finally open on Sunday, the lines were much longer outside Little Man Ice Cream than they were at Tejon Liquors, just a block away. And with temperatures slated to hit triple digits…
Billy’s Inn is now open, and looks to become as popular with this generation of northwest Denver dwellers as it was with seven decades of previous regulars (you can find their mugs here). But unlike the last incarnation of Billy’s, this one has a kitchen (the last one closed in…
The neighborhood at the edge of Highland, now dubbed LoHi, could change its name to LoHot, with so many bars and restaurants popping up seemingly overnight.And then there’s Rosa Linda’s Mexican Café, which has held down the corner of 33rd and Tejon for more than twenty years. You’ll often find…
Since it opened six months ago, Fuel has become not just a regular meeting spot for those with offices or business in the Taxi development but also a go-to destination for anyone who wants to see a project fueling Denver’s growing reputation as a hipster hangout. While owner/chef Bob Blair…
Sitting down for a late Sunday brunch on the patio at Hamburger Mary’s, I hear the cute boy next to me say, “My penis isn’t curved — in fact, it’s the only straight thing on me.” And instantly, I realize that I’m at the center of the universe for extraordinary…
The food doesn’t get any more local than at Gaia Bistro, especially in the summertime, when greenhouse gardens in the back yard yield produce for the table. And it only seems natural to eat out admidst the growing stuff — which is easy to do on the cozy patio at…
