Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we give our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. (We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems.)
My heart sank as I clicked through online photos of a flood at Denver’s Squire Lounge on July 31: kegs of beer submerged in frothy muck; a drum and paint cans and cardboard boxes piled haphazardly; a pond of brown water submerging the corner of East Colfax Avenue and Williams Street.
It wasn’t the first flood prompted by heavy rains, but it was the worst Sudhir Kudva has seen in his 22 years of co-owning it, he said . He and longtime bartender Cam Omlid blamed the ongoing Bus Rapid Transit construction project for the severity, joining a chorus of business owners and citizens who have bemoaned the BRT’s effects since it started more than two years ago.
“What they did by covering up the storm drains and pulling out the hard clay soil around the building and replacing it with soil cells, has made the building uninhabitable during a rainstorm,” he wrote. “We, at worst, used to get about 2-3 inches of water in the basement.
“Last night’s storm wasn’t even in the top 50 worst rain events we have had, but we had over THREE FEET of water in the basement,” he continued. “Took out our water heater, walk-in cooler, liquor and anything else we had in the basement.”
For now, The Squire’s owners and employees must figure out how to clean up (note: it reopened for business this week). But whatever they do, Denver can scarcely afford to lose any more Colfax history. The Squire has, for better and worse, been a bastion of that gritty culture for decades, serving cheap beer and shots to diverse and often hard-luck clientele while hosting punk-rock comedy and music that has helped birth some of Denver’s best entertainers.
Maybe it’s not as gritty as it used to be: it opened around 1950, but enjoyed a handsome renovation as recently as the late 2010s. And yet, stepping into the Squire Lounge still feels like doing a shot (or two) of concentrated Colfax, no chaser. The white-walled exterior and people-watching patio conceal a brick cavern of humid mischief, and an unvarnished gateway into Denver’s rapidly disappearing past. There are no $20 cocktails here, no VIP booths, and no trendy theme that will look embarrassingly stale in five years.
Rather, it’s a cheap and fascinating night out, provided you don’t mind Colfax being Colfax. It was the perfect place to hold an open-mic comedy night — my first occasion to go in the mid-to-late 2000s — and a unique spot to mingle with the DIY artists and hipsters and weirdos who percolated up from it. Packed, hazy late nights that had the smack of legend to them in hindsight. It’s easy to imagine Jack Kerouac hanging out there — had he visited 70 or so years after “On the Road” was published.
True, any city has its churn, and Denver’s boom-and-bust culture seems frustratingly unshakeable at times. But culture hounds can still feel the instability of our dive-bar pillars. Carioca Cafe (a.k.a. Bar Bar) was demolished in July. Every new bar that opens seems more niche and less casual than the last. Mocktails? CBD drinks? Quiet reflection? Yawn.
The Squire welcomes all, however light their wallets. It’s not a tourist magnet or a noisy sports hall or pretentious coastal concept. It’s a dive, and one that needs as much fresh air as any other to stay afloat. I’m past my days of dropping by there regularly, as when I lived a couple of blocks away and regularly wrote about the place. But I’m tempted now to rouse a sandbag brigade.
How else to protect this island of realness amid the rising tide of construction, gentrification and high costs for small business owners? I don’t have solutions, but I do know that Denver needs the Squire as much as it needs us.
The Squire Lounge is located at 1800 E. Colfax Ave. in Denver, and open 4 p.m.-2 a.m. Monday-Friday, and 2 p.m.-2 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. Visit for more details.
