Patricia Calhoun
Audio By Carbonatix
Nightlife at the National Western Complex is about to break wide open, as the founders of the Wide Open Saloon begin a residency at the historic Livestock Exchange, in a former saloon space now called the Exchange.
A week before their Wide Open @ the Stockyards residency is to begin, Todd and Leah Hills — who started the Wide Open in an old Johnson’s Corner truck stop in Sedalia in 2020 — are sitting at the long wooden bar scuffed from decades of beers and shots being served to everyone from cowboys to brand inspectors to FBI agents who once officed in the complex, ticking off the tasks that remain before the 120th anniversary edition of the National Western Stock Show kicks off January 10. The main room has been cleaned, and just awaits a stage and a few high-tops, leaving plenty of open floor for dancing; dining tables will be set up in the room next door.
“Wide Open has always been about bringing people together over good music and good food, and there is no better place to do that than the Stockyards during the National Western,” says Todd. “We want folks to feel like they have a home base to gather, refuel and have some fun.”
And eat some barbecue.
Valeria Moonch Photography
While the Wide Open crew will be running the bar and booking the bands that will perform every day and night during the Stock Show, the team behind Riot BBQ will provide the food, bringing their Texas-style barbecue with a twist to the pop-up party. With the raves for Patrick Klaiber, a Michelin Bib Gourmand-recognized pitmaster, and chef Manny Barella, a James Beard Foundation Emerging Chef semifinalist (two of Westword‘s People to Watch in 2026), that fare — even though it will be prepared off-site — should be a big change from the funnel cakes, turkey legs and Dippin’ Dots offered by the various vendors at the Stock Show.
Don’t expect any Rocky Mountain oysters, either.
Meanwhile, in Lakewood…
For the first time in 25 years, Dean Maus is not spending sixteen-hour days booking bands and stocking bars in the run-up to the Stock Show.
He’d operated the saloon in the Livestock Exchange complex since a regular at his Willy’s Wings in Evergreen suggested that they buy the longtime watering hole that had dried up after doing business as the Stockyards Inn, Doc’s (where a Westword Christmas party almost set the place on fire), the Old West Tavern and other venues lost to time. That fall, they did just that, reopening the only independent bar on the National Western campus, in the newest (1919!) building in the group of three structures that make up the Exchange.
By the time the Stock Show came around, the partner was gone…but Maus had found a home, and operated the Denver Stockyard Saloon year-round, through thick and very thin.
A half-dozen years ago, as construction of the massive new National Western Center got underway, the city purchased the Livestock Exchange complex from Fred Orr, its longtime owner, for $11.5 million; in 2020, it sold the property for $8.5 million to a partnership that included EXDO Development, Elevation Development Group, the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and the nonprofit National Western Center Authority. Maus kept his place going, but he knew that change was coming; in 2023, he even posted a sign that his business was for sale.
He got second thoughts, though, and tried to negotiate a new lease. But he and the new owners couldn’t come anywhere close to an agreement. “It became clear to me they didn’t want me here,” Maus said at the time. “And I’ve been here 24 years. They’re forcing me out of business.”
So last year, he advertised that the 2025 Stock Show would be his last, greeting New Year’s Day with a lengthy, randomly capitalized message: “It is with Great Sadness Denver Stockyard Saloon will be Closing PERMANENTLY April 2025. Our entire family and friends have helped out over the past 25 years to make the Denver Stockyard Saloon ‘The Yard Bar’ what it is today. A gathering place for family and friends from all over the world to reminisce, share stories of the past, present and future, How much things have changed, Some Good, Some Bad, conduct business and love one another….We Will let Everyone know of Our New location soon.”
That location, Denver Stockyard Saloon: The Yard Bar, opened at 11810 West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood last spring.
It’s doing a solid business the Saturday before Stock Show, with regulars comparing notes about favorite Italian joints in Denver and spots that used to let them drink a couple buckets of beers before cutting them off.
Beyond the “Get in Here” sign over the door and a menu that includes a few old favorites, including Rocky Mountain oysters, this bar doesn’t bear much resemblance to Maus’s last place. But its website still optimistically notes that, “We do not accept reservations during the National Western Stock Show”…which now takes place twenty miles away.
Back at the Ranch…
Drinking will be very different at the Stock Show this year. The Cowboy Bar in the basement of the Hall of Education has gone the way of the peanuts that once littered the floor of the circa 1975 basement space; that seasonal saloon has moved to the new Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Livestock Center, where it’s been dubbed the Coors Banquet Hall.
The new Legacy Center, right next to the Livestock Exchange, will debut with eight bars, some open to the public, including the Legacy Bar designed like an Old West saloon and a fancy new Yard Bar. The old Yard Bar, a casual pop-down that Maus operated in the basement below his Denver Stockyard Saloon during the Stock Show, is gone; that space now holds brand-new bathrooms that replaced the ones on the first floor that had been denoted by the labels Heifer and Steer.
That’s just one of the big changes the ownership group has made as it tackles restoring the Livestock Exchange. “We have to renovate the entire building,” Andy Feinstein of EXDO Development said last year, explaining why Maus’s saloon had to go while major restoration work was done on the century-old building. “It’s a personal passion of mine to get this thing back to life.” And why not? His great-grand-uncle, who ran the grocer’s union and became a Colorado state senator in the early 1900s, used to office here.
The flagship of the three Livestock Exchange has been completely renovated.
The Exchange
The middle structure in the complex, the oldest, was badly damaged by a fire decades ago; the exterior has been renovated, but the interior is gutted, with no restoration in sight.
The real showpiece is the first structure in the complex, the actual Livestock Exchange with a marble lobby and an Art Deco elevator; it will be open for tours during the Stock Show. There are already offices here; the owners are planning to add retail and a steakhouse on the first floor.
And someday, there will be an official hospitality tenant in the old bar, too; a banner on the side advertises that the space is for lease. “I don’t know what form it’s going to be in, but it will still be a saloon,” Feinstein promised.
In the meantime, Leah Hills says, “Whether you rode in with your horses, you are here with your family, or you just came for the music, we want everyone walking into Wide Open at the Exchange to feel welcomed, taken care of, and part of the experience.”
The Wide Open @ the Stockyards will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. from January 8-24 at 4710 National Western Drive. There’s no cover, and you won’t need Stock Show tickets to reach the bar…although you will to tour the Exchange. Learn more here.
