Denver Bars, Clubs & Nightlife Entertainment - Denver Local Bars

Icing Bridezilla is now playing at the The Lumber Baron Inn & Gardens. Imagine arriving at a grand Victorian Mansion where dozens of cocktailers are mingling around the parlours when you suddenly bump into the “bride from HELL” that evening.  After a few moments with the wacky actors and hearing about the strange relationships these people have with one another, you begin to realize you’ve stumbled into a zany plot that could inspire MURDER!  It’s a hilarious evening of fun, food, comedy and escape- you’ll love it!

Loaded with wizened barflies during the day and, well, just loaded at night, 15th Street Tavern is a legendary local Denver bar and live music club that hosts a solid nightly lineup of hard rocking, louder than when your momma spots a mouse, punk, indie and straight rock bands. Most of the bands are local homegrown Denver garage rockers blessedly slackin' through life with an amp and a skateboard, but the 15th Street Tavern also snags a $#!%-ton of national touring bands that can't escape this Denver bar's black hole-esque gravitational pull. On any given night local Denver punks, hipsters, artists and indies jam into the 15th Street Tavern for plentiful cheap booze and a little eardrum damage.

If someone could actually complain about the scene, the cheap drinks or excellent bar grub at The Bank Bar and Grill in Denver, we'd love to hear what their gripe is because, as far as we're concerned, this is a great little neighborhood hangout for a chill night drinking in Denver. Also, The Bank Bar and Grill takes care of its boozehounds with two nightly happy hours where the prices almost make you feel guilty for drinking. That last little tidbit should forever shut the collective pieholes of any naysayers to what The Bank Bar and Grill brings to the Denver bar table.

This New York based bar chain has spawned many incarnations and imitators—and we're sort of wondering if the chicken or the egg came first—but two things are assured at Coyote Ugly Saloon in Denver: there'll be plenty of booze and hotties will dance on the bar. This partying Denver bar is continually packed, but it's usually a one-sided meat market with guys trying to spit game to the female bartenders before they hop on the bar for their regular "impromptu" dances. So, Coyote Ugly Saloon is fun—in fact it's a booze soaked freakin' party—but, guys, if you're looking for a place to beat the odds with plenty of women there are other Denver bars to score in. C'mon, how many hot girls do you see taking advantage of the free buffet at strip clubs or scarfing chicken wings at Hooters...in case your rampant libido has your brain stumped, the answer is: none.

Sporting one of the largest beer selections of any Denver bar, Falling Rock Tap House boasts 69 beers on tap and plenty more selections available in the bottle for booze hound beer lovers. This two-story Denver beer Eden also has a phenomenal bar food menu with appetizers, salads and burgers including their heart stopping hamburger homage to Elvis that contains more than enough ingredients to make your cardiologist wince. Also, Falling Rock Tap House is the after bar for Denver's Great American Beer Festival, so after guzzling some heady brews during the day you can keep going right on down hoppy way into the night.

Trendy scenesters of the decidedly beautiful and moneyed set flock to the Funky Buddha Lounge in Denver to get their pricey booze, velvet roped playtime in. This hip and happening Denver bar hotspot features local artwork adorning the walls incase you needed eye candy other than the abundant human variety, some of Denver's slickest DJs spinning house, trance and hip-hop and an upstairs patio with some kickin' bartenders that throw down the libation gauntlet nightly. You'd do well to arrive at the Funky Buddha Lounge early if you're planning a night of Denver bar drinking and leave your usual dress sweats baseball cap clothes combo at home lest you be left out in the cold with the unwashed masses.

Gabor's, a hip Denver bar that definitely has juke joint dive leanings, gets packed nightly with drinkers looking for that little something extra out of their watering hole. The bartenders at Gabor's let the liquor flow freely and always take care of the burgeoning crowds of hipsters that dig the abject un-trendiness of this low lit Denver bar. And, how's this for balking the wannabe hip trendy...er, trends; no DJ and the jukebox at Gabor's has all of your dive bar favorites including those hard rocking, painted face glam masqueraders: KISS.

One of the best Denver bar parties, completely infused with hottie coeds and boozed up hounds, happens nightly at the Giggling Grizzly. Located near Coors Field and absolutely jam packed on game days, the Giggling Grizzly takes care of your wallet and your liver with nightly drink specials and a freakin' rocking happy hour. Boasting the cheapest drinks around for their college aged crowd, this Denver bar also sports an excellent bar grub menu that offers huge portions of all your favorites to the beat of some classic rock and mainstream DJ nights.

Govnr's Park is a popular Denver sports bar that offers two of the best specialty drinks that we can think of. First, Govnr's Park is one of the understandably few places that offer beer yards that make getting sauced a unique adventure in liquid tensile physics and general moxie. Two, this Denver bar has a cocktail that will make any well conditioned sot run screaming for the hills and dig out that AA card their mom mistakenly gave them when she found their collective heads scanning the inside of a toilet bowl, The Cheesman—a sand pail filled with more liquor than a bathtub gin party and it can probably take the tarnish off of anything. Also, Govnr's Park does an excellent bar food menu spanning your traditional favorites and the poolroom and the back patio are always completely packed with boozy revelers.

Hanson's Grill and Tavern isn't your typical Denver sports bar because, even though it can get unruly when a good game is on, the patrons come more for the excellent food and local camaraderie. Hanson's Grill and Tavern serves an upscale bar menu full of American comfort food with some offshoots, but stick to the meat and potatoes classics and you'll never be disappointed. The beer and liquor selection is good and this two-story Denver bar also sports a separate poolroom with foosball for some healthy competition and the upstairs lounge at Hanson's Grill and Tavern has a slew of board games, so when your date whoops your sorry butt at pool you can exact your revenge by sinking their battleship.

The Hard Rock Café probably stays in business more through its international tourist clout and T-shirt sales than by ever hosting hard rocking live music. The Denver location of this chain bar is much the same as the other Hard Rock Café's serving American grill fare, decent cocktails and festooned with rock and roll memorabilia; and at least some of it has local Denver roots.

An authentic dive bar in Denver's trendy club mecca of LoDo, Herb's Hideout is aptly named because it's a bar where you can escape the nightclub masses with their high nightclub prices, belly up to the bar and partake in the seemingly bygone activity for which bars were created: getting sauced. Herb's Hideout does get some of the club set who're tired of standing in line mixing with their booze hound regulars and that fact alone is what makes this a great Denver bar institution. Well, that and the pricing scheme that hasn't changed since the bar opened. Also, Herb's Hideout has brought back Denver grown jazz and blues live music for their eclectically heterogeneous crowds.

The hi-dive rocks with local Denver punk and indie action offering both live music and DJ nights in a great setting that recalls the heydays of Denver's grittily rocking live music scene. The drinks—like the halcyon days of old—are cheap and strong, the food is traditional bar fare and actually really good, the bands blow the freakin' roof off the joint and the hi-dive attracts a good mix of young artsy minded imbibers that rub elbows with aurally minded Denver bar sots.

The Hornet is a trendy, slightly upscale diner that offers the Denver restaurant and bar crowd nightly drink specials so cheap that your wallet will thank you and sports live music on the weekends that's always on point. The crowds at The Hornet range from blue to white collar and from families during the day to festive boozers at night. This Denver local bar's menu is good old Americana with some fusionary twists and The Hornet sports a couple of pool tables for some drinking distractions.

A small underground club in Denver that draws in the beautiful people that don't really mind parting with their hard earned cash for a little image bolstering. Trendy scenesters flock to Hush for its see and be seen vibe, some strong cocktails that you're gonna pay for in both money and liver decomposition and some old-school hip-hop spun by rotating DJs. If that's your scene, then Hush's candle lit dim confines is your place, also, all of the tables are VIP reservation only with required bottle service which kinda makes you wonder what all these pretensions are doing in Denver.

A good little dive styled Denver bar, Kazmo's has something for everyone from hot DJs spinning out varying genres of music at eardrum shattering levels to impromptu wet T-shirt contests to 8 ball tourneys and, this gem of a bar opens up at 7am on Sundays so you can keep the party going. Whoever at Kazmo's that came up with the Sunday morning gig should be immortalized on everybody's wall of fame (shame) for their excellent use of priority management. Also, this hip Denver bar has an undeniable vibe that will keep you and your crew downing Kazmo's stiff cocktails and boozing it up all night—and morning—long.

Sports fans revel in LoDo's Bar and Grill for its location just down the street from Coors Field that makes this Denver sports bar the perfect place to catch a pre or post game beer, so you know on game days LoDo's is packed. On the weekends, even when the home team's not slugging it out, this Denver bar still gets wall to wall with boozy twenty and thirty-somethings that crowd in for the drink specials and the live entertainment. Also, LoDo's Bar and Grill does an excellent bar menu that spans the comfort food range and, during the summer months, you've got to check out their roof top patio for a little al fresco partying.

It may seem like the sole pastime of gut overhangin', Miller swillin' yokels, but at Lucky Strike Lanes, a local Denver bar and bowling alley, getting sauced and trying to knock things down gets a hip retro wash and is an undisputed freakin' blast. The restaurant and bar—heck the actual bowling alley too—gets the '50s style kitsch treatment and Lucky Strike Lanes does serve up some excellent grub, unlike your typical alley, and heavy-handed cocktails, just like your typical alley. The crowds that converge on this Denver bar with the main attraction that was once a constant source of mockery are young and hip realizing that you don't need to drop 10 bucks on a cocktail and carry an air of blasé moodiness to have a great time drinking.

A kicked back local Denver bar, the Martini Ranch offers 50 kinds of specialty martinis, all expertly mixed, for the T-shirt and jeans sophisticates that crowd this three-level LoDo destination spot for drinkers, diners and dancers. Slick rotating DJs man the decks in the downstairs Shaker Room and on the main floor a wide array of American rooted stellar bar style food is offered, but the real attraction at this casual yet chic Denver bar hangout is the upstairs martini lounge.

Rustic and old school, Mike's Great Divide is a Denver local bar where the phrase "no frills" is the prime directive and everybody takes it to heart. The booze of choice for the regulars at Mike's Great Divide is ice-cold beer and the friendly neighborhood sots rarely deviate from that course. If you're looking for a little Denver bar fun on an otherwise usually slow day, drop by Mike's Great Divide on Sunday nights where there's an open-mic, open stage night that scores some choice hilarity points.

All you really need to know about this local Denver bar is that the Park Tavern and Restaurant sports three—yeah, that's right three—happy hours, so at virtually any point in the day you can belly up to the bar and take a discount on Park Tavern's already low prices. Heck, even if you buy a cocktail at the reduced rate and don't get to it, the friendly bar staff will kick you a token that you can redeem anytime—now that's accommodating your drinkers. The bar food at Park Tavern and Restaurant is simple pub grub and this Denver bar gives you distractions other than the expressed drinking one with three pool tables, video games and foosball.

A completely low-key neighborhood bar in Denver's LoDo district of ultra-trendy club swankiness, the Pourhouse Pub sports one of the most amicable airs of any bar and its a welcomed escape from this Denver bar's velvet roped brethren. The Pourhouse Pub's already cheap prices are further enhanced by a lengthy happy hour that almost makes you feel guilty for boozing with such little monetary output and this Denver local bar also has a rooftop patio—that's open year-round—because the people watching scene up and down LoDo is too good to be solely relegated to the summer months.

The Red Room is a hip kicked back Denver bar that's seriously packed from open to close with an eclectic mix of Cap Hill regulars and boozers tripping up and down Colfax. This two story lounge, restaurant and bar reaps the best aspects out of swankier joints, meaning you won't find any pretentious attitudes in the staff, patrons or prices, but you will find well poured premium cocktails and excellent food at the Red Room. Perhaps the biggest draw at this Denver bar is the staff who're are always quick with a smile and your drinks.

The Roo Bar is a hip testament to Denver drinking featuring a long list of martini variations, quality tap beers and some pretty darned good bar food. Roo Bar sports a kitschy amalgam of designer style melding '50s diner and pool hall mod with Victorian comfort that sets a juxtaposing tone to this Denver bar, yet it totally works. The house pizzas and calzones are a good bet for some booze soaking eats and were the crowds can lean toward the hip and beautiful Denver club set, you can blissfully kick back in the Roo Bar in your jeans and ball cap best.

The Rox Infusion Lounge doesn't really get kickin' until the sun is far over the horizon which makes this Denver bar and martini lounge a good place for an intimate pre-clubbing cocktail. Even when the late night hours roll around and the Rox Infusion Lounge heats up there's still an air of mature calmness presiding over the party. Some of Denver's slickest DJs spin a variety of tunes and always seem to hit their mark for the revelers on the dance floor and a small, but really good, menu provides snacks to those that need it.

Denver's tie-dyed Dead Head hippie contingency stalks all of the Quixote empires local bars, but those could be considered mere outposts when compared to the patchouli pad of Sancho's Broken Arrow. The jukebox full of 3-day concert festival classics reigns supreme and you can rest assured that you'll hear "impromptu" musical tributes to this crowd's late guitar slinging god. Actually this Denver bar is a chill place to hang with some friends, enjoy a beer and play some foosball, just don't break the hackysack circle at Sancho's Broken Arrow on your way to the bar because nobody likes an angry hippie.

If you thought that karaoke had reached it's apex with video displays and other electronic gizmos to make that cursed entertainment alternative hip, then you've never been to Sing Sing in Denver that really doesn't do karaoke in the traditional boozy Japanese businessman sense. Rather, Sing Sing is a dueling piano bar where audience members drink their fill and are flat out encouraged to sing along with the often bawdy pianist's renditions of your favorite classics. The crowds of revelers at this Denver bar get more rowdy and participatory in direct correlation to the amount of booze that's been ingested—hey, just like karaoke! We suppose the form of interactive live musical entertainment at Sing Sing gives karaoke the old kung fu slap if only for the fact that you won't ever have to endure addled crooners belting out "Friends in Low Places" 15 freakin' times and making your ears bleed.

Hep cats, cool chick and rockabilly rebels can be seen boozing it up nightly at Denver's Skylark Lounge that is a living testament to '50s pop culture, music and dancing. The drinks at this Denver bar and live music club are poured heavier than a lead foot trampin' down on a flat head Ford and they'll whip your head back just the same while you take in the phenomenal Skylark Lounge lineup of Denver local bands and national touring rockabilly, swing and alt-country acts that set fire to the stage. Guys, slap some grease in your hair and cuff up those jeans, ladies don your pin-up girl best, crank up your hot rod and cruise over to one of Denver's best frickin' bars; the Skylark Lounge.

Although billed as a sports bar The South Park Tavern in Denver caters more to local booze hounds over the fanatical beer swilling jersey set. Of course the South Park Tavern's pool tables, sports tuned TVs and air hockey table—arguably the best bar room game ever—make a strong bid for Denver sports bar fame, but the expansive dance floor and DJs spinning Eurocentric industrial sounds seem to nip that little aspiration in the bud making The South Park Tavern just a cool place to hang, drink and catch the game without having to do the requisite high-fives.

The Thin Man is an extremely popular Denver bar hotspot known for its comfy hip confines, its superior bar staff and its affinity for concocting exquisite infused vodkas. Since the Thin Man came on the scene it's been continually packed and getting a stool or a table has become an exercise in futility at this Denver bar even for their growing pantheon of neighborhood regulars. Even if you've got to stand through your imbibing, the Thin Man is an excellent place to meet up with friends and enjoy some cocktails in the amicable environs fine liquor was meant to be drank in.

The Walnut Room in Denver by virtue of really being an extension of a recording facility gets a fresh weekly slate of Denver local bands cutting their teeth on this bar's stage. There isn't any specific genre at The Walnut Room, just like there really isn't any specific crowd at this Denver live music club, but you're more likely to find college students rather than industry execs. Also, The Walnut Room serves up some cheap and tasty grub for both their patrons and musicians, but those under the age of 21 have to vacate before the real partying begins at 10pm.

A friendly Denver neighborhood bar that could easily turn into a death trap if you attempt to navigate the Whiskey Tour 'cause the Whiskey Bar sports about 75 different kinds on their list that if you tried to sample in one sitting your liver would go running for the hills. This Denver bar has an undeniable local flavor that you don't find very often and the slate of whiskey heads that crowd in are completely appreciative. The Whiskey Bar definitely returns the favor of patronage with a happy hour that's one of the best bar deals in Denver.

While the beer vats may be long gone, the spirit of Bavarian immigrant Phillip Zang lives on in the old school rustic building that's successfully transformed itself into a top notch Denver local sports bar. However, there are still some exclusive tap beers made especially for Zang's by One Keg Brewhouse, so the brewing nostalgia and moniker aren't lost and this Denver bar also serves up some more than decent and varied pub grub. Zang's packs in a steady crowd of sports minded drinkers and during a game—any game really, but especially when the Broncos or Avs are playing—this historic bar is standing room only.