“The last time I drank Boone’s Farm, I was stumbling around in high school.”
It hasn’t been that long for me, but I get what our bartender Sarah was saying. Boone’s Farm products are the training wheels, the entry drug, for future alcohol aficionados – as is Mad Dog 20/20, which is why we were having this conversation on a recent Sunday night.
Above the bar at RockBar are countless bottles of MD 20/20, arranged like a rainbow of uncertainty, a more hazardous and tentative Skittles commercial. Mogen David’s MD 20/20 is a fortified wine product that is every bit as low-rent as Boone’s Farm. It’s cheap, a favorite in truck stops and suburban gas stations, and best served wrapped in brown paper.
Which is why Sarah is taking pleasure in telling us about RockBar’s all-day happy hour: $1 shots of MD 20/20. I would guess that the majority of MD 20/20 consumption isn’t out of desire but desperation, which makes its inclusion here curious, but properly ironic. It’s tough to miss the wink, the joke here – especially after walking through RockBar’s doors off East Colfax Avenue.
The ceiling-mount light fixtures, ’70s carpet and floor- to-ceiling mirrors against the restored parquet dance floor are all original and hint at a glorious past. They’re authentic from the last time the dimly lit, 2,000-square-foot bar inside the All-Inn Motel was open and rocking, New Year’s Eve 1979. Aside from the MD 20/20 and the White Castle Sliders, the rest of the fare is pretty au courant dive fare: PBR, corn dogs, Schlitz and onion rings.
But they are refreshingly cheap. A basket of fries is $2, and you can get a burger for under $5. Happy hour (3-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday, all day Sunday) is pretty intoxicating with $1.50 PBRs, $2 wells, 50-cent wings and $1 hot dogs. We reveled in a smorgasbord of food, whiskey and PBR after talking with Sarah and before trying our luck in the arcade, where we found out that while both Nichole and I stink at Joust, I’m even worse at Donkey Kong and Julian rails at Ms. Pac-Man.
It’s hard not to feel the bar’s original personality peeking out, what with the buttoned booths and Smokey Robinson-Roy Orbison combinations on the jukebox. (The bar also has DJs Tuesdays and Thursdays-Saturdays.) But the LED lights above each of the booths – sporting band logos such as Metallica, Pantera and AC/DC – are over the top and out of place. The bar speaks for itself, and some restoration and embellishment is OK. But the lights, which include The Beatles and Nine Inch Nails, are tacky overkill.
RockBar
3015 E. Colfax Ave.
Funky: The kitchen is open until midnight.
Skunky: Beware of the Dog – he’s Mad.
