Upcoming Uncle Offshoot in RiNo Now Has a Name

When Uncle owner Tommy Lee staked a claim on a building at 3500 Larimer Street at the beginning of the year, it got tagged with the temporary moniker Bar Uncle, for lack of an official name. But a new website and Facebook page are now up, announcing that when the place opens this fall, it will be called Hop Alley.

According to the description on the website, the name is a tribute to Denver’s original China Town, which was called Hop Alley. The name didn’t refer to the bittering ingredient in beer but but was rather a derogatory term, so the new bar and eatery will not be yet another craft-beer taproom. Instead, the website describes it as follows:

We love dai pai dongs, cold beer, garlic, soy and scallions. 
Magnums of wine, dried chilis, conviviality, wood fires and happy animals.
Hip hop, paper napkins, pretty ice cubes, sharing, simplicity and irony.
Cheers to the new chinatown.

Uncle made our list of the ten best new restaurants when it opened in 2012 and it still continues to draw a crowd with top-notch ramen and other Asian bites, so we expect the same caliber of food — and frenzy — when Hop Alley opens. Here’s a Denver Post article with a brief history of the original Hop Alley, which was actually located several blocks away.