![best gay bar denver best gay bar denver](https://img1.10bestmedia.com/Images/Photos/354755/Oz_55_660x440.jpg)
There's no small amount of anticipation surrounding a new business from the owners of one of the country's most lauded bars. Power outlets and USB ports are plentiful. Walls of vintage boomboxes and cassettes, along with arcade games, TVs, darts and a bocce court, further accent the casual theme. Exposed brick and scuffed wood floors frame a subtle counterculture theme with references to art, literature and music (the bathroom doors bear images of Blondie and Iggy Pop cue jokes about which one the guys should use). The 1,200-square-foot space, a former Native American art store, will seat just under 100, including on a modest patio with a view of the Denver skyline to the south. It's connected by a short hallway to Williams & Graham, but it's a different beast entirely, and one that makes concessions to the 21st century in a way that would shatter Williams & Graham's meticulously crafted fantasy. His 65-person capacity room is slow to turn over, and would-be patrons wait hours to duck through the fake bookcase.Īlong with his business partners, the 46-year-old Kenyon, a veteran bartender from a long line of New Jersey bartenders, will next month open a new venture, The Occidental.
![best gay bar denver best gay bar denver](https://img1.10bestmedia.com/Images/Photos/29929/p-marys-atlanta-ga-usa-1513810_55_660x440_201405301530.jpg)
Last weekend, at a competition in New Orleans, Williams & Graham was named the Best American Cocktail Bar at the 2015 Spirited Awards.īut even as Kenyon has built an international reputation for his bar, with a strong flow of locals, tourists and celebrity loyalists like Dave Chappelle, it has become increasingly clear that he needs to expand. New York Times cocktail writer Robert Simonson similarly tweeted that Kenyon's Bartender of the Year win at last year's Spirited Awards was the biggest thing ever to happen to Denver's cocktail scene. Outside of coastal cities and Chicago, no interior-American bar has ever won the coveted Drinks International award. "Part of what we love is that this place is a suspended reality. "You probably didn't even know we had a window," said co-owner Sean Kenyon as he unhooked a wood panel, disguised with a framed painting, to reveal a shaft of sunlight. Now the team behind Williams & Graham, which last year was named one of the world's 50 best bars by Drinks International, is ready to peel back another layer.
![best gay bar denver best gay bar denver](https://www.wolfyy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/denver-gay-bars-x-bar.jpg)
Syrups are made in-house, daily, and drinks such as the Blackberry Sage Smash and Sloe Summer pay tribute to the season. Intimidatingly perfect Old Fashioneds and Manhattans sell briskly. Nor has Williams & Graham's old-school hospitality, which has built a loyal following with amiable, serene service and a drink list that balances classics with flavorful mixology. The neo-speakeasy gimmick, while trendy when the bar opened in 2011, has (incredibly) not lost an ounce of its allure. With no TVs or digital glare, casually dressed professionals come there to drink and talk, not see and be seen. Despite the naked incandescent bulbs hanging from the ceiling, the place emanates a dreamlike warmth and elegance. Stamped tin ceilings loom over the long, red-walled room, which is lined on one side by high-backed booths and on the other by a densely-packed bar with arched shelves. Shortly thereafter, the bookcase creaks open to reveal, to no one's surprise but nearly everyone's delight, a dimly lit, wood-paneled bar. If you're one of the lucky few with a nightly reservation-and not one of the 1,500 craft-cocktail lovers on the bar's weekly, three-hour wait list-the host will pass a piece of paper with your name on it through a tiny door in the wall. At Williams & Graham, on the corner of 32nd Avenue and Tejon Street in Denver's fast-growing Lower Highland neighborhood, everyone must confront the first layer of secrecy: a small but convincing bookstore.