We believe in the rebel spirit. We believe in us against them. We believe in smoking in the boy’s room – in persnickety Boulder, no less.
And so we believe in the Catacombs.
Like some musky medieval dungeon converted into a game room replete with video games, billiards and gallons of alcohol, the Catacombs (2115 13th St., 303-443-0486) is a curious entity indeed. Its random, stone-walled rooms are laid out in a cavernous, maze-like configuration that, especially with the aid of certain beverages, can be downright head- scratching. The crowd is more varied than that in an airport waiting area. And it’s one of the smokiest bars in all of Colorado.
That last note wouldn’t be worth mentioning were it not for the Catacombs’ location underneath the Hotel Boulderado, off the Pearl Street Mall in Beautiful Boulder. (Yes, the same Boulder with the smoking ban in all bars, restaurants and clubs.) If you go out in Boulder as opposed to Denver, you recognize the difference in the lack of stench embedded in your clothes the following morning.
Not so at the Catacombs. You might as well be in a French jazz club, what with the thick block of smoke in the main bar. Many people puff away as they sit on one of the Catacombs’ many couches, thinking they’re bucking the system with each flick of the lighter, but it’s all legal. (Something about it being a separately ventilated area and separate from the other rooms.)
And while that’s not as cool as the alternative – where a consortium of people would gather nightly to protest a law they don’t believe in (at the same time slowly killing themselves) – it’s one of the Catacombs’ biggest selling points, for a certain segment of the population, at least.
Nonsmokers may like the feeling of game-room spelunking but won’t search the bar out otherwise. But at least it seems more humane – in a self-destructive way – than other Boulder bars that add on a torture chamber-looking glass box in the back specifically for the smokers and their shared habit.
Staff writer Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
Funky: The Catacombs’ charm is its dense, seemingly ancient stone walls.
Skunky: The bar food isn’t the draw at this collegiate establishment.
