After 60 years, a sign at the bar says, Don’s Club Tavern (a.k.a. Don’s Mixed Drinks) is expanding.
Well, sort of.
It’s one of Denver’s favorite dives — nestled into the ‘hood at 723 E. Sixth Ave.
Motto: “The price of being sober is being scared out of your mind.”
The bar was bought by Mark Berzins’ Little Pub Company in 2005 — and he said at the time he was leaving it alone. “We’re not going to change a thing,” he told me. “Our intention is to keep the same beautiful divey joint. I would feel wrong going in there swinging hammers.”
He is going to swing hammers — but not to yuppify the joint. He’s moving the bathrooms into the space next door, which will make a lot of people happy — for the johns at Don’s were legendary, and not in a good way. “Finally, a spectacular failure of the ladies’ room plumbing made us do this,” Berzins says. “But it won’t change the main room at all.”
Construction should start soon, but don’t get scared — Don’s will stay open.
Sunday! Funday!
In other bar news, My Brother’s Bar will be open on a Sunday — Sept. 7 — for the first time in its storied history.
It’s a fundraiser for Ron Sigg, a friend of the joint with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Organizers realize it’s the beginning of football season, but the Broncos are playing Monday night — so you have no excuses.
It’s the music, man.
The Denver Post’s eighth annual Underground Music Showcase runs Friday and Saturday — with more than 100 local bands playing at 20 South Broadway venues for $20. The best deal you’ll get in music this year, guaranteed. Check it out on the front page of Sunday’s Entertainment section of The Post.
Local bands also get a shot at playing a 30-minute set at Red Rocks during the Monolith Festival on Sept. 14. That will be trippy. Go to , click on entertainment and get the deets on how to enter Fox Rocks.
Convention confidential.
Strings is hosting a few DNC parties — and I hope the Dems take a look at the bathrooms. Since 1996 the men’s room has ID’d itself with a B&W picture of Bobby and Jack Kennedy huddling, heads together. If you’re wondering what they’re talking about, the women’s room next door IDs itself with a classic picture of Marilyn Monroe . . . CNN’s Wolf Blitzer wrote the cover story for Frontier Airline’s new DNC-themed issue of Wild Blue Yonder. His insight: “You never know what’s going to happen. That’s why they’re so much fun to cover.” . . . The New Democratic Network writes in to say that its DNC party won’t be at the Wynkoop — but they’ll tell us next week where it will be.
City spirit.
Leigh Jones has opened Jonesy’s EatBar — which she says is Denver’s first gastropub — at 400 E. 20th Ave., in what was The Dish . . . Sez who: “A career is wonderful thing, but you can’t snuggle up to it on a cold night.” Marilyn Monroe
Bill Husted’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Husted also appears Tuesdays and Fridays on “Good Day Colorado” on Fox 31. You can reach him at 303-954-1486 or bhusted@denverpost.com.
