I’m one of “those” people. You know the ones. The crazy people who talk about their dogs the way other people talk about their kids. The kooks who spend thousands of dollars on doggie daycare so that Daisy or Rex won’t be home alone. The people who allow their dogs…
In retrospect, we should have ordered sake. We definitely thought about it, lingered on the cocktail page while our server stood impatiently behind the hot hibachi grill with the rest of the menus and her free arm outstretched, almost asked for the $22 bottle and five glasses. But then we…
View larger specimen In order to make more sense of the world around us, illustrator and public house naturalist Nate Stone is compiling here a taxonomy of different barflies. While you’re out and about in Denver, if you spot any of these specimens please add your observations about their habitat…
I love trying new places, so when a friend told me of a “great” restaurant near her home in the Denver Tech Center, I was willing to get on the highway and head down to my old stamping grounds. But as I walked in the door of Bonefish Grill and…
Like many young smokers, I don’t mind the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act — the smoking ban, as it were, that took effect in this state July 1, 2006. I recognize my filthy habit as a phase, one I will (hopefully) leave behind once I’m a parent and a full-fledged…
View larger specimen In order to make more sense of the world around us, illustrator and public house naturalist Nate Stone is compiling here a taxonomy of different barflies. While you’re out and about in Denver, if you spot any of these specimens please add your observations about their habitat…
Ohio Pete called early last Thursday. “What time are you getting to the Cowboy Bar?” he asked. “We were there yesterday,” I told him. “But we planned our trip because we met you there last year on a Thursday,” he whined. Too bad, Ohio Pete: There’s no postponing this cattle…
View larger specimen In order to make more sense of the world around us, illustrator and public house naturalist Nate Stone is compiling here a taxonomy of different barflies. While you’re out and about in Denver, if you spot any of these specimens please add your observations about their habitat…
I met Charlie Huang in a limo on the way to the Diamond Cabaret — which sounds a lot sleazier than it really was. A friend and I were drinking at the Funky Buddha when we met up with a group of guy friends who had a limo for the…
This could very well have been a story of anger and aggravation, a story about waiting fifty fucking minutes for a cab to arrive at my apartment in Five Points, a story about years of frustrated anticipation and irritation, a story that was really little more than a diatribe about…
The first time I went to the Little Bear, I was in high school and using my new State of Kansas fake ID. Like any teenager attempting to commit fraud, I was exceedingly nervous. Back then, the Little Bear was so tough that rumor had it if you came without…
“I’m going to drink you out of house and home,” I tell Matt LaBarge sometime between my second and third mimosa at Sputnik (3 South Broadway). LaBarge, a former kickball teammate and co-owner of both the hi-dive and Sputnik, has told me more than once that he loses his ass…
As I walked into Santa Fe Tequila Company, I felt a little like Alice falling down the rabbit hole into a magical place. Sadly, I saw no caterpillar sitting on a mushroom and smoking a hookah, but the specialty drink list definitely winks at that wonderland with such cocktails as…
I’ve been back to the bars in Iowa City — the town where I got my undergraduate degree — a number of times since I left three years ago. And every time, my college friends and I have stood around feeling just plain old. Not old like the non-traditional graduate-student…
There are people who love the entire holiday shopping experience, who are excited at the prospect of going to a hectic shopping mall with other busy shoppers, perusing the tsotchkes and searching for the perfect gift that their kids will actually believe Santa made. I, on the other hand, regard…
It starts out so normal, my inaugural trip to Micky Manor (2544 Federal Boulevard): warm greeting from a group of friends watching the Broncos trail late in the third quarter; pitcher after plastic pitcher of Natural Light, poured steadily into six-ounce glasses and accompanied by complimentary shots of a yellow…
Something about the Thunderbird Lounge (721 Quebec Street) makes me want to take off my shoes and get more comfortable, maybe hang my coat in the hallway closet and then grab a bite from the fridge. I’ve never been here before and know only the people I came with, but…
There are certain spots that I just don’t think of as places to eat. The Rio, for example. Although I know a lot of people who for some reason like to eat there, for me, the drinks and the drinkers are the draw. Just a couple of blocks away from…
Fuck Man Law. You know what I’m talking about: those now-canceled Miller Lite commercials where a panel of dudes drunk on their own testosterone decided what was manly and what wasn’t. Examples: When toasting with beer, the bottoms of bottles should be clinked because clinking the tops would swap saliva…
Most bars are so five minutes ago. While I love trying the trendy/beautiful-people spots, my attention span is shorter than the dresses on Dancing With the Stars. After I’ve experienced the shlock of the new, I’m usually on to the Next Big Thing or retreating to an old standby for…
In this space, I’ve dehumanized Denver’s homeless to a disgusting degree (The Ginn Mill, October 4), comparing them to open-sored, echolalic zombies worthy of scorn and contempt. I’ve also championed our city’s homeless (Star Bar, October 11), celebrating one man as a hardworking, down-on-his-luck type of guy worthy of my…
When I lived in Manhattan, my office was next to one of the city’s oldest bars: P.J. Clarke’s. As a relatively new legal drinker, I was fascinated by that bar’s century-old history and the classic cocktails it served to well-heeled Midtown businessmen. And when I moved back to Denver and…
