The Best Places in Denver
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- Westword 2025 · Best New Neighborhood Bar · Best of Denver
- Westword The Top 50 Bars in Denver Right Now
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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 Sicilian family splits the room between a bakery counter stacked with lobster tail pastries and sweet cannoli and a full sit-down dining area with a bar, so you can eat chicken parm and lasagna, then carry dessert home. The savory cannoli, stuffed with sausage, jalapeños, and oozing mozzarella, has earned its own following. Finish with the house limoncello, made cream-style in the Sicilian way, which lands somewhere between a digestif and a milkshake.
The awards
- Westword 2025 · Best Sicilian Bakery · Best of Denver
- Westword 2023 · Best Old-School Italian Restaurant · Best of Denver
- Westword 2024 · Best Savory Cannoli · Best of Denver
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- Westword 2024 · Best New Bakery · Best of Denver
- Westword The Top 50 Restaurants in Denver Right Now
- Westword 2025 · Best New Takeout Pizza · Best of Denver
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- Westword 2025 · Best Place to Get a Warm Beer on Purpose · Best of Denver
- Westword The Top 50 Bars in Denver Right Now
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- Westword 2025 · Best New Bar Where Everything Is $5 · Best of Denver
- Westword The Top 50 Bars in Denver Right Now
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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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- Westword 2025 · Best Distillery for Cocktails, With or Without Booze · Best of Denver
- Westword The Top 50 Bars in Denver Right Now
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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 The Top 50 Restaurants in Denver Right Now
- Westword 2025 · Best New Taco Joint · Best of Denver
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- Westword The Top 50 Restaurants in Denver Right Now
- Westword 2024 · Best Fried Chicken Entree · Best of Denver
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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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- Westword The Top 50 Restaurants in Denver Right Now
- Westword 2025 · Best Upscale Thai Restaurant · Best of Denver
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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.
The awards
- 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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Rank 581. BaekGa
Korean
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Rank 581. La Forêt
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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.
The awards
- 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.
The awards
- 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.
The awards
- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
The awards
- 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.
The awards
- 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.
The awards
- 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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- 5280 The 25 Best Restaurants in Denver
- Westword 2024 · Best Restaurant for a First Date · 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.
The awards
- 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