The Best Things to Do in Denver, by the Record
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Sports memorabilia covers every surface here, bathrooms included, because half-measures are for people who don't care. Named for a beloved late Nuggets trainer, this Cherry Creek sports bar has been around forever and carries that weight lightly. The menu sits a notch above standard bar fare, and the TVs outnumber the regulars on a slow night. When the Nuggets are playing, there is nowhere more logical to be.
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A Czech-owned sports bar on Broadway where the roast duck shares menu space with chicken wings and the back bar stocks Becherovka alongside the usual domestic taps. Pool tables, a Pac-Man cabinet, karaoke nights, and Avalanche games on the screens make it a full-service neighborhood hangout. Westword named it Denver's top bar for Avalanche games in 2025, which feels right for a place this cheerfully, improbably itself.
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A record shop sprawling across the old Lowenstein Center on East Colfax, Twist & Shout stocks vinyl, CDs, DVDs, books, and decades of rock-era paraphernalia in a space big enough to lose an afternoon in. Touring acts play occasional in-store shows, and a rotating Local Listening Post keeps tabs on Denver's own scene. Westword named it the city's best record store in 2025, which will surprise nobody who has spent an hour here and left with six things they didn't plan to buy.
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- Westword 2024 · Best Venue for Hip-Hop · Best of Denver
- Westword The Top 50 Bars in Denver Right Now
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The acoustically treated walls mean the sound hits you right no matter where you sit, which matters when the names on stage have included Esperanza Spalding and Bill Frisell. Dazzle is Denver's long-running jazz club, the kind that draws serious talent week after week and keeps the bar busy with martinis and a four-cheese mac that regulars order without looking up. DownBeat placed it among the top 100 jazz clubs in the world.
- Westword 2024 · Best Late-Night Jazz · Best of Denver
- 5280 Best for Sips and a Show · The 23 Best Bars in Denver
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- Westword 2024 · Best Darts Club · Best of Denver
- 5280 Best for Fun and Games · The 23 Best Bars in Denver
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Tango parties, poetry slams, lindy-hop lessons, and Green Party meetings have all shared the same calendar here, which tells you everything about what kind of place this is. Mercury Cafe is a restaurant, dance club, music venue, and community living room rolled into one rambling building with baroque rooms. The vibe skews healthy and hippie, the crowd skews everyone, and the open-mic nights have earned a following devoted enough to win notice from Westword.
- Westword 2023 · Best Open-Mic Night · Best of Denver
- 5280 Best for Sips and a Show · The 23 Best Bars in Denver
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The building was a brothel, a flophouse, and a peep-show parlor before it became this. Now it's a bar and live-music venue dressed in 70s swank, vintage soft-core art, and low-slung lounges surrounding a sunken stage. The team calls it a "gastro-brothel," which is not a word you forget. Small plates and cocktails run alongside whatever's on stage, and the whole thing is loud, garish, and extremely committed to the bit.
- Westword 2023 · Best Venue With a Sexy History · Best of Denver
- 5280 Best for Sips and a Show · The 23 Best Bars in Denver
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A geodesic dome built to look like a beehive sits inside this late-night dance bar and immersive art venue in RiNo. The team behind it took Tulum and Burning Man as their starting points, then handed the space to a crew of local artists, so you get vine-covered bars and a garden courtyard that somehow make sense together. It draws the kind of crowd that dresses for the art as much as the dancing.
- Westword 2024 · Best Club to Dance, See Art and Feel Safe · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Dance Club · Best of Denver
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Duke Ellington played this Five Points room when it was still the Casino Cabaret, which tells you something about the bones. It's a live music venue now running a wide-open booking policy: dubstep, hip-hop, bluegrass, and jam bands share the calendar without obvious contradiction. The main floor was rebuilt and the stage expanded, so the sound holds up. Crowds skew toward people who track setlists, but the room pulls in anyone chasing a late night.
- Westword 2024 · Best Place to Find the Jams · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Indoor-Outdoor Venue · Best of Denver
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Tucked below Larimer Square, this standup club has the kind of acoustics that make a room feel like it's laughing with one throat. Dave Attell recorded a live album here, and Dave Chappelle has a habit of showing up unannounced. New Talent Nights have been launching local comics toward television for years, which keeps the room feeling like something might actually happen on any given night.
- Westword 2024 · Best Comedy Club for Local and National Talent · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Comedy Night: New Talent Night · Best of Denver
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- Westword 2024 · Best Place to Rub Elbows With Your Favorite Musicians · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Food at a Venue · Best of Denver
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The art-deco interior survived a near-demolition, and it still sets the tone: ornate details, good acoustics, and a room that makes mid-sized shows feel like an occasion. The Gothic is a standing concert venue in Englewood that books the kind of acts you'll wish you'd caught before they got bigger, alongside local projects that wouldn't otherwise find a stage this good. Take the light rail; parking on Broadway is its own opening act.
- Westword 2024 · Best Venue for Public Transportation · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Venue With New Ownership · Best of Denver
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- Westword 2023 · Best Metal Venue · Best of Denver
- Westword 2024 · Best Community Support for a Venue · Best of Denver
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The low-slung stage here puts you close enough to the band that you'll question whether you're supposed to be back there. Larimer Lounge is a dive-ish live music venue in RiNo that has hosted acts like Arcade Fire and Bat for Lashes before they stopped fitting in rooms this size. The bar up front runs on beer, shots, and what appears to be structural duct tape. Westword named it Denver's top venue for both rock bands and DJs in 2024.
- Westword 2024 · Best Venue for Both Rock Bands and DJs · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Indie-Rock Venue · Best of Denver
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- Westword 2024 · Best Immersive Installation for Parties · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Immersive Experience · Best of Denver
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- Westword 2024 · Best Museum Programs · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Museum for Locals · Best of Denver
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The wraparound balcony alone explains why national touring acts keep coming back to this mid-size concert venue on Colfax. The Ogden has been around forever, vaudeville and all, and a recent overhaul brought new floors and a proper sound system without scrubbing the old bones. It holds a sweet spot between arena anonymity and club intimacy, which makes the sightlines good pretty much wherever you end up.
- Westword 2024 · Best Staff at a Venue · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Venue in a Historic Structure · Best of Denver
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An old movie house in the Berkeley neighborhood that survived decades of disrepair to become one of Denver's more reliably eclectic live venues. Music, comedy, circus, and things harder to categorize all share the same stage, which makes checking the calendar a worthwhile habit. The room still carries the bones of its original life, and the scale keeps it intimate enough that there isn't really a bad spot in the house.
- Westword 2024 · Best Variety at a Venue · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Venue for Music, Comedy, Circus and More · Best of Denver
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Two 300-foot sandstone fins frame the stage at Red Rocks, an outdoor amphitheater carved by geology rather than any architect. U2 filmed "Under a Blood Red Sky" here, and the recording captures why: the acoustics are a geological accident that nobody has managed to replicate. The venue sits open most of the year for hiking and visiting even when nobody's performing, so you don't need a ticket to feel like you've stumbled onto something.
- Westword 2024 · Best Historic Venue · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Bathrooms at a Venue · Best of Denver
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- Westword 2024 · Best Artist Residency · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Nonprofit Gallery · Best of Denver
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- Westword 2024 · Best Annual Immersive Installations · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Seasonal Immersive · Best of Denver
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- Westword 2024 · Best Venue Layout · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Indoor Venue · Best of Denver
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- Westword 2024 · Best Game Meetups · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Store on Broadway · Best of Denver
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Sketch comedy and improv on South Broadway, where the Baker neighborhood's thrift-store-chic energy suits the format perfectly. Performers with roots in Chicago, New York, and LA take the stage Thursday through Sunday, and the room is small enough that a botched scene lands on everyone equally. Classes run from total beginner to working comic, so you can watch one week and embarrass yourself on stage the next.
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A single-owner operation in a bare-bones space where new and unpublished plays get staged because no board exists to say otherwise. Dangerous Theatre leans into sketch, improv, and stand-up on Fridays alongside original works the rest of the week, the kind of scrappy, intimate venue where the person who wrote the show might also be taking your ticket. Westword named it Denver's boundary-pushing comedy club of 2024.
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An outdoor amphitheater in the Denver suburbs that has cycled through enough corporate sponsors to fill a naming-rights hall of fame, Fiddlers Green is now back to its original name and hosting around 17,000 people a summer night. The fixed seats up front give way to a general-admission lawn behind, where blankets and lawn chairs fill in for anything from country headliners to metal festivals. AEG Live books the big touring acts that still fill sheds.
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The sushi menu here is organized by skill level, from "Beginner Rolls" up through "Intermediate" and into house specials, most of which are named after something you wouldn't say at a work lunch. Hapa is a casual fusion sushi bar that also does sliders, nachos, and a Fuji apple salad for anyone dragged there under protest. The kitchen is more capable than the cheeky menu suggests, and somehow a DJ fits into the whole equation too.
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