Best Name for a Tattoo Shop 2014 | Kitchens' Ink Tattoo & Art Gallery | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Name for a Tattoo Shop

Kitchens' Ink Tattoo & Art Gallery

The idea of a stranger digging ink-soaked needles into your skin for hours at a time can be scary, so you have to find comfort where you can when getting a tattoo. Kitchens' Ink provides this comfort through its name, which nods to the coziest room in the house. "It's where everybody hangs out. I liked how personable it is and the easy access the name gave," says owner Joe Manley, who got the idea for it while tattooing a friend in his kitchen. Not everyone gets the pun, and during its first couple of years in business, the shop received countless calls from people looking to buy kitchen supplies. Eight years later, Kitchens' Ink is well known, and clients feel right at home here.

Best Selection of Body Jewelry

Sol Tribe Tattoo & Body Piercing

Courtesy Sol Tribe Custom Tattoo and Body Piercing Facebook page

From steel studs to shell plugs, Sol Tribe is the place to fill your body-modification needs. The shop carries a seemingly endless selection of body jewelry in all shapes, sizes and materials, including gold, silver, bone, glass, wood, stone, shell and stainless steel. But staffers don't just sell the hardware; they install it, too. Owned by Alicia Cardenas and Kevin Strawbridge, Sol Tribe specializes in all types of body modification, from tattoos and piercings to scarification and branding. No matter what type of body jewelry you're looking for, this is the place to find the widest variety and one-of-a-kind pieces.

Best Name for a Hair Salon

Hair and Now

We've been collecting salon names around the globe, but aren't about to split hairs. For pure existential panache, it's hard to beat Hair and Now — which is very much in the now in Aurora's Fairways Shopping Center.

Best Name for a Marijuana Dispensary

Trenchtown MMC

Scott Lentz

Dispensaries with music-related names just make us happy. That's why we've had two Grateful Dead-themed winners in the past and why we're going with Trenchtown, a Bob Marley-inspired shop, this year. As the wise Rastaman once said, "One good thing about music — when it hits you, you feel no pain." Unless, of course, you're smoking poorly grown weed, in which case you could end up with a scratchy throat or headache. Not the case at Trenchtown, where Marley himself would have been feelin' irie over the quality of buds available.

Best Dispensary Name for a Non-Marijuana-Related Business

Colorado Joint Replacement Center

The Colorado Joint Replacement Center sounds like a stoner's dream, but the orthopedic surgery center near the University of Denver is talking about a whole different kind of joint.

Best MMJ Dispensary for Patient Perks

The Herbal Cure

Scott Lentz

Medical marijuana patients designate dispensaries as their primary caregivers in exchange for the right to grow six of their own plants, and it's nice to get something in return. The Herbal Center does right by its patients, who get at least 10 percent off retail pricing on herb, edibles and concentrates as well as a $225 cap on ounces. The store also offers daily deals like Wax Wednesdays — when you can take $5 off the per-gram price of hash — and free-joint Fridays. But what really stands out is the giant prize wheel, which can be spun by patients who spend $35 or more. Prizes range from free THC suckers and $5 coupons to an eighth of herb from the $25 economy shelf or a card punch worth $25. It's like the stoner Price Is Right.

Best Edibles

Incredibles

While some edibles companies have been busted in recent months for selling pot-infused foods with little to no actual pot in them, Incredibles chocolate bars always pack the full punch advertised on their packaging. The bars contain a range of THC concentrates, including icewater hash and CO2-extracted oil. What the Lakewood company doesn't use is alcohol- or butane-based extractions — just natural cannabis and a lot of rich chocolate. Consistently dosed and delightfully downable, these are the chocolate lover's edibles.

Best Mind-Altering Edibles That Don't Contain THC

The Chocolate Therapist

Chocolate guru Julie Pech gave talks on the health benefits of chocolate for years before finally opening her own gourmet chocolate-and-coffee shop in downtown Littleton. And the Chocolate Therapist has been such a hit that she's now moving into franchising. You can count on the chocolates and toffee to be handcrafted in small batches on the premises, without artificial flavorings or dyes. You can also rely on them to do what comes naturally, according to Pech: relieve stress and create a relaxed sense of well-being. Check out the line of wine-pairing chocolates, then savor the sweetest bit: A portion of all sales goes to aid children's programs around the world.

Best Concentrate Company

Top Shelf Extracts

Of all the concentrates we sampled last year from medical dispensaries, one batch of shatter stood out as the strongest, most flavorful of them all — which shouldn't be surprising, since it came from one of the oldest and most widespread concentrate companies, Top Shelf Extracts. The amber chunk of Kandy Kush was very clear, very clean and very tasty. The oil burned with a kushy, earthy flavor on a hot titanium nail, and small, BB-sized dabs were enough to put us right for a couple of hours (though the mouth-watering taste dictated that we take two dabs at a time). Founder and hash wizard Daniel de Sailles has stepped up his game over the last year or so, and we see more and more top-quality hash oil on the shelves being produced by TSE.

Best Hot Budtender — Male

Zac Maas

If you looked up the definition of "masculinity" in an ancient Viking text written by a drunkard, it would most likely describe the steaming chunk of man-meat that is Zac "Bear Man" Maas. His rugged good looks do him well as a budtender at the Releaf Center, where the eligible bachelor woos the ladies day in and day out with his silver tongue and knowledge of fine cannabis. "Some men teach their sons to shave, others teach them to be men," he once told us. Listen to more words of wisdom from this handsome fellow on the Whiskey and Cigarettes podcast, which Maas produces every week with comedian Jake Browne.

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