For an entire actor Bradley Cooper (51 years), the was a two-story Baseline Road institution, crowded with neon signs, taxidermied animals and layers upon layers, upon even more layers, of old-school bar ephemera. The bar’s website described it as a place decorated “from top to bottom with movie props and turn-of-the-century antiques,” and over time that collection metastasized into the gloriously overstuffed interior that generations of Boulder revelers would go on to know and love. (Or, in the case of this writer, fear).
The Dark Horse , after five decades in business, making way for the Williams Village II redevelopment project, which will bring 427 residential units and new commercial space to the site.
Before the building is demolished, though, the bar is .
If you ever stood in the dining area of the Dark Horse and looked up at the ceiling, you had to wonder about the physics of the place — specifically, how on earth full-sized carriages and fiberglass mascots remained fastened to the walls and ceilings for half a century without dropping and crushing an unassuming patron drinking a Coors Banquet. Whether it was industrial-strength bolts or just 50 years of accumulated fryer grease acting as a structural adhesive, the clutter managed to stay put — until now.
Since closing day, staff have been disassembling and sorting the memorabilia that lined the walls and ceilings, and proceeds from the sale will go toward severance pay for employees. In an announcement on the bar’s Instagram, the Dark Horse explained that the sale serves a very specific purpose for the “big and wonderful (and maybe a little dysfunctional) family” that ran the place.
“We have decided to part with many of the beloved objects as a shared goal to help and pay our long term staff a severance, as they have continually shown their dedication to our business… not only in our closing months, but over the years,” The Dark Horse said in a post.
The Dark Horse also that it’s not selling off everything, offering a glimmer of hope to fans of the iconic bar that it will resurrect in a new location: “many of the parts of the bar are being saved and stored while limited items were sent to auction.”
The . Check out the items and bid at .
If you’ve ever wanted your living room to feel like a landlocked dive bar, here are five of the strangest things you can bid on, according to the .
Lot 367: Vintage fiberglass hamburger mascot figure
Bid as of Sunday: $720, 28 total bids, 89 bidders watching the item
Currently sitting at 28 bids, for reasons known only to God, this terrifying burger mascot remains one of the more hotly contested items in the auction. I remember this thing from college. It used to hang over the pool tables, looming there with the fixed intensity of something that had borne witness to unspeakable things. If you were trying to line up a shot, Burger Man was watching. If you were just trying to sit there and eat your chicken fingers in peace, Burger Man was still watching. Eyes wide open, unblinking, unmoving, penetrative, clairvoyant. I would not be remotely surprised to learn this thing is haunted.
dz308: Horse-drawn cutter sleigh
Bid as of Sunday: $275, 26 total bids, 101 bidders watching the item
Among the many carriages up for grabs is a horse-drawn yellow cutter sleigh. We haven’t had a winter (or a lack of access to an automobile) necessitating a sleigh in quite some time. However, should society collapse or an abrupt ice age hit the Front Range, you’ll be the only one on Baseline Road with a viable transport option. Just add a couple of mules, or perhaps nine reindeer if you want to go super, duper fast.
Lot 350: Wooden hand-crank butter churn
Bid as of Sunday: $17.50, 9 total bids, 51 bidders watching the item
This is the item that people should be fighting for. Right now, it is somehow sitting at $17.50, which feels absurdly low for an object capable of producing butter that tastes like it was mixed by angel wings. Hand-churned butter is richer, softer, fresher than that unnatural yellow stuff you can find in the supermarket. People on TikTok will try to tell you that you can get the same result by shaking cream in a mason jar with a couple of marbles rattling around inside. You can, technically, just as you can technically cut your own bangs with kitchen scissors. With this churn, you could produce butter the analog way, making for a wonderful upper-body exercise, as well as a delightful present for your neighbors.
dz269:North American porcupine, full-body taxidermy mount
Bid as of Sunday: $230, 43 bids, 98 bidders watching the item
Why settle for a porcupine head when you can have the whole animal? This North American specimen comes mounted on a branch and ready for your mantle. Porcupines can carry roughly 30,000 quills, all made of keratin, the same material found in human hair and fingernails. I cannot say with confidence that decades inside a humid burger bar did this one any favors, but porcupines do have plenty to spare. Their quills loosen easily, which feels worth noting if you are planning to transport this thing home in the backseat.
Lot 348: Wooden cannon
Bid as of Sunday: $220, 30 bids, 110 bidders watching the item
Itap a wooden cannon, or at least a decorative object with very strong cannon energy. What I can say for certain is that it looks entirely at home in a bar and considerably harder to explain in a single-family ranch. It is the perfect conversation starter, provided the conversation is, “Why do you have artillery in your foyer?”
