Best Bar at a Local Music Venue 2003 | The Balcony Bar The Gothic Theatre | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Bar at a Local Music Venue

The Balcony Bar The Gothic Theatre

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Perched high in the Gothic Theatre's cavernous rafters, the bar at the back of the balcony is the optimal place to quaff a drink at a show. Its lofty location allows for a near-bird's-eye view of the stage as well as the theater's lively art-deco interior. The atmosphere is cozy and unlike that of any other bar in metro Denver. Sleek, dark and enticing, this watering hole is more like a watering zenith.

Best Musical Addition to the Denver Skyline

Universal Lending CityLights Pavilion

It's a tent! It's a theater! It's a fully modular, collapsible, portable music venue, planted smack dab in the middle of the Pepsi Center parking lot during warmer months. Replicating a seasonal venue that's been successful in Boston, CityLights was unfolded last spring as a joint partnership between two powerful local forces, Clear Channel Entertainment and Kroenke Sports. And though the maiden season didn't pack 'em in quite as much the suits might have liked -- due, in part, to a sluggish concert season and a saturated summer-concert calendar -- the tent itself is a lovely, luminous structure with a thoroughly urban feel. Let there be Lights.

Best Place to See Chicks Fight

Carioca Cafe

Molly Martin
Carioca Cafe, also known affectionately as "BAR," after its generic neon sign, squats on the desolate corner of 21st and Champa. The astoundingly cheap drinks and great Tuesday-night DJs Chuck and Brian attract a strange mix of clientele: scooter folk, indie rockers, Joe Hundredaires and, of course, your typical crusty, decrepit barflies. But these barflies bring their girlfriends, and therein lies the spectacle. Petty jealousies seethe and bristled fur flies when riled up by too many 75-cent Pabst Blue Ribbons and one-buck wells. We're not talking bitch slaps here: This is knock-down, drag-out, table-upending tavern combat, with two-inch manicures drawing blood like the talons of some mythical Maybelline-dripping beast. And there's not even a cover!

Best Place to Sing Along Drunkenly to Marvin Gaye

Streets of London Pub

Every Thursday night at Streets of London Pub, DJs Rob Hostetter and Dan Shattuck spin the sweet, deep sounds of '60s soul music. Shattuck focuses on the Jamaican strains of rocksteady and ska, but Hostetter specializes in northern soul -- the stomping, exuberant, dance-inducing style of American R&B originally championed by British DJs over three decades ago. His sets slide smoothly from the pounding beats of Edwin Starr to the satiny funk of Young-Holt Unlimited, mixing Motown standards with the most esoteric 45s. There's no dance floor at Streets, but that doesn't stop the white kids from spazzin' out like they're on some goofy Anglo version of Soul Train.

Best Place to Sing Along Drunkenly to Piano Music

Charlie Brown's Bar & Grill

Mark Antonation
Saddle, stumble or slump on up to the piano in the corner at Charlie Brown's. Even if you've overindulged in the bar's strong cocktails -- that's what people do at Charlie Brown's, after all -- Pauly Lopez's playing will only sweeten the buzz. A veritable ivory-tinkling encyclopedia of Tin Pan Alley songs, show tunes, even sweeping classical pieces, Lopez welcomes all to join him in song around the keys. If he's feeling it, he might even rattle off a medley of old radio-station jingles. A post-theater crowd sometimes shows up to belt the numbers out properly, but most often it's just commoners who turn up to vocalize. Pauly don't play pop, so don't ask. But if you've got a secret soft spot for Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein and their musical ilk, by all means, sing out.

Best Place to Perk Up With the Blues

Acoustic Cafe

People can get their groove -- and their buzz -- on at Nederland's Acoustic Cafe. This funky coffee shop, founded by state representative Tom Plant, attracts both yuppie skiers and hippie townies. The diverse clientele comes not only for the beans, but also for the beats. Most Friday and Saturday nights, folk and jazz bands perform. And on Sunday afternoons, wannabe musicians can participate in a free-for-all bluegrass jam.

Best Place to Make Fun of Hipsters Making Fun of Yuppies

The Red Room

Yuppies go to the Red Room to feel edgy and urban, not to mention partake in a kick-ass selection of microbrews. Hipsters go to the Red Room for the amazing appetizers and $1.75 cans of Old Milwaukee...and, of course, to make fun of the yuppies. The rest of us go to the Red Room to comment on this behavior like lab technicians conducting some sick sociological experiment. Just make sure there's no one sitting at the next booth over making fun of you.

Best Winterized Lounge

The Ginger Bar at Funky Buddha Lounge

The see-and-be-seen bar that is the Funky Buddha has an equally fancy-pants upstairs lounge that keeps its cocktail-toting patrons nice and toasty, even in the heart of a snowstorm. In the summer, the plastic eaves roll down, and the place transforms into Denver's most beatific rooftop patio -- and we're not just talking about the view or the decor. With Gary Givant serving as a resident DJ, the entertainment is pretty swanky, too.

Best Smoker's Paradise

Charlie Brown's Bar & Grill

Mark Antonation
As Boulder's goody-two-shoes influence spreads insidiously across the Front Range, more and more smokers are forced to find public spaces that still allow the open practice of their vice. At Charlie Brown's, smoking is not only allowed, it's practically encouraged. Four people settling down to dine will be provided with at least three ashtrays, regardless of their location beneath the impotent No Smoking sign. Two enormous filter fans, a slight nod to the non-smokers on the other side of the bar, work overtime but do little to relieve lungs of secondhand smoke or clothes of the permeating smell of blessed nicotine. Smoke 'em while you still can, and do it at Charlie Brown's, where everybody might not know your name, but they certainly know your smokers' cough.

Best Men's Room in a Bar

Sancho's Broken Arrow

For a bathroom to be considered "the best," it must reek more of personality than of your drinking buddy's puke. The men's restroom at Sancho's may not be the cleanest in Denver, but like the tie-dyed audience at a Phish show, hygiene is not central to its appeal. With elaborately airbrushed portraits of granola-centric staples like Bob Marley, Jim Morrison and John Lennon, the room can make a three-Long Island Iced Tea bender feel like an acid trip. Since it's a men's restroom, it is not completely free of graffiti (it takes only a few strokes of a sharpie to make a mushroom look phallic), but even your non-Deadhead friends will find the Jerry Garcia mirror groovy.

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