Best Vending Machine 2013 | Forest Room 5 | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Vending Machine

Forest Room 5

Bartender Paul Garcia serves multiple roles at Forest Room 5, but one stands out on his business card. Garcia is curator of the bar's kooky vending machine, which means he scours thrift stores to find enough odds and ends to restock its wares twice a week with items including take-home marijuana tests, American Spirit cigarettes, expandable sponge spiders and various pulp-fiction novels from the 1970s. (As of this writing, both Cosmic Crusaders and 2061: Odyssey Three were still available.) Customers can also use their coins, $1 and $5 bills to purchase insect putty, ovulation predictors and pepper or basil seeds while they last. And if your strangely shaped item gets stuck, no worries: There's always an employee available to help you get the rusty used wrench you bought out of the machine. True story.

Best Vending Machine for Guilty Pleasures

Don's Club Tavern

Molly Martin

No matter what decisions you make on your night out, Don's Club Tavern has got you covered in the best of times and the worst of times. And we're not just talking about the friendly dive's good-time vibe and generous hard-alcohol selection: Immediately to the left of the bar is a particularly well-stocked vending machine, where drinkers and pool-players can find Spam and cans of tuna, along with Hot Pockets, Cracker Jack, frozen pizza to pop into the bar's microwave, and even a pregnancy test (it costs $5 with button B5). How you sneak it into the bathroom to take it is up to you.

Best Vintage Knickknacks

Night & Day Vintage

Anna Duarte and Amy Bates-Nelson were both avid vintage collectors and selling on separate Etsy pages long before they met, but their formal introduction was kismet, and Night & Day Vintage was born. The combined collection of vintage treasure filling the Golden Triangle storefront is staggering, but in a manageable way, juxtaposing furniture, old suitcases, pinecone mugs and other kitchenware, vinyl hula albums, retro movie lobby cards, cowboy boots, accessories and a hand-picked selection of very fine vintage clothing. Non-vintage items include handcrafted Frida Kahlo portrait jewelry, dangling, filigree-ringed earrings and big floral clips that can double as brooches, as well as a sweet line of earrings and necklaces showcasing tiny carved wooden birds.

Best Vintage Store

The Amazing Garage Sale

The secret to every junk store worth its salt is wise curation, and Judy Lesta nails it at her North Boulder buy/sell/consign vintage-and- antique emporium. With a soft focus on mid-mod furniture and the accessories to match, from lamps to jewelry, the Amazing Garage Sale is clearly the best garage sale you've ever been to — even if the prices don't necessarily stick to the usual "next stop, Goodwill" credo of front-yard bargain shopping. But consider what you're getting: a real Eames chair, a green-glass bubble lamp or perhaps a beautiful oak filing cabinet.

Best Way to Borrow a Zine

Denver Zine Library

The ten-year-old Denver Zine Library has moved up in the world and is now firmly ensconced in the sprawling collective known as 27 Social Centre, where it shares street-side space with the Denver Community Health Collective. This has given the volunteer-run library room to spread out and grow its collection of more than 10,000 independent publications. The DZL is still free; anyone can walk in to browse and check out the zine of his or her choice. Visit the website for library hours and a schedule of workshops, readings and events.

Best Way to Buy a Zine

Xena the Zine Vending Machine

The partnership between Lowbrow, Broadway's art-is-for-everybody glitter emporium, and the Denver Zine Library includes occasional zine-making workshops and gallery shows, but Xena is the most visible evidence of the creative collaboration. The refurbished '70s-era vending machine is stocked with vendable zines, each available for a few coins dropped in the slot. So convenient! Xena is a permanent fixture at Lowbrow, where it's easy to drop in when you need your page-turning fix.

Best Wine Shop

Mondo Vino

Courtesy Mondo Vino Facebook page

Once you've reached the top, it's tough to challenge yourself to do better than you've done before, to exceed the expectations you've long since satisfied. But Mondo Vino never rests on its well-earned laurels, and remains best in class when it comes to selling wine in this city. Whether you're a hard-core oenophile with enough bottles in your cellar to survive the apocalypse or a certified wine neophyte, you'll feel right at home in the cozy confines of this Highland Square shrine to the vine. A truly kick-ass wine shop never intimidates with airs of pretension; instead, it offers customers straightforward, supremely curated and well-priced selections that fill their every wine-purchasing need. Stop in on your way home from work for something to drink with dinner or spend half your Saturday at the shop's legendary free tastings. Just make sure you get in there.

Best Yard Art Store

Alice's Secret Garden

Indoors, Alice's is filled with nooks and crannies full of bohemian gowns, beaded evening bags, baubles and bangles, antiques, fleece dolls and sweet-smelling toiletries. But it's outside, in the beautiful front garden, where Alice's really blooms. Among real trees and blossoms enclosed by a cast-iron fence is a trove of fantastical yard art for sale: gazing balls and fabulous, rustic topsy-turvy birdhouses made by Crooked Creations, whimsical sculpted-tin farm animals and fanciful flower stakes. Step inside the gate, and you might come away with something lovely with which to decorate your own garden.

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