When news broke in July that the Superfund project in Denver’s Globeville neighborhood was nearing completion, a lot of questions must have surfaced.
Questions like, “Where’s Globeville?”
For those not in the know, Globeville is a little neighborhood near the meeting point of Interstates 25 and 70. Look down next time you’re at the intersection — you might be able to see some of the neighborhood’s modest houses in the shadow of the interstates.
A home to the area’s industrial workers when factories ruled the area, it’s a rather quiet hamlet now, easily reachable but somehow cut off from the rest of downtown.
Not far away are the bars and galleries of upper Larimer and Walnut streets, but Globeville almost seems like it’s in a different place and time.
But let’s not get out of hand and over-romanticize it — it’s a working-class enclave with artsy gentrification creeping toward it. And it’s a Superfund site.
However you want to describe it, some of the locals are probably having a beer at The White Owl (321 E. 45th Ave.).
Known for decades as the Portulaca Cafe, the bar was purchased by Brooke Kline and Aaron Scott in 2008. They reopened it as The White Owl.
“We completely changed it, and sometimes I wonder if that was a little cultural insensitivity on our part,” says Kline.
Sure enough, the new owners felt some resistance from the neighbors at first. Not everyone was thrilled.
“We kind of had to prove ourselves to these people,” Kline says. “The (customers) who stayed I absolutely love. They’ve been so kind and so wonderful to us and accepted us as part of the neighborhood.”
It can’t have been easy. Kline says the White Owl building was constructed in the 1930s as a social club for the local Slavic population and became the Portulaca in the mid-1940s. Some of the regulars have been hanging out almost that long.
“A lot of the daytime customers I have are grandchildren of the original Globeville residents,” Kline says.
It’s a relatively small space, but comfortable, with booths lining two of the walls and wooden tables scattered about.
The huge, wooden, 100-year-old bar was transplanted long ago from a Denver hotel. On the wall opposite, a painted sign for the Portulaca from the 1950s advertises Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Kline and Scott found it in the garage and hung it up as a tribute.
“I think when we hung up the sign, that was the tipping point,” says Kline. “(The neighbors thought) ‘All right, you know where this place came from.’ “
Now that their position in the neighborhood is stabilizing, Kline and Scott are reaching outside of Globeville with events like Rumbleseat, a weekly Sunday DJ night with guest bartenders, outdoor movie nights and events for fans of two-wheeled transportation.
“For bikes and motorcycles it’s such a fantastic ride (to the White Owl),” says Kline. “On bikes, you can take the (South) Platte River trail. Scooters and motorcycles can take Brighton Boulevard.”
As much as the White Owl’s owners are working to bring in some new blood, they’re still committed to an old-school ethos.
“For the bar, our catchphrase — it’s on our card — is, ‘classic drinking,’ ” Kline says, citing the 1940s and ’50s as inspiration.
“The drinks are made well, the service is good, and we’re always kind of sticking to that,” she says. “We’re not huge, we don’t have a million amenities, but in absence of those things, we can offer a damn proper cocktail.”
You can’t help but raise a glass to that, Globeville.
