SPEED FIRST - SAFETY SECOND

Thursday, March 22, 2012

My Home Away From Home


Was mentioned in this article.

The bar I work at is just that, a true fucking bar. No kitchen, just a vending machine and liquid dinners. Come in and have a drink, everyone is welcome any time, and we make everyone feel that way. But, if you want fancy drinks, there's plenty of other joints in Boulder/Denver to do so. As far as my life is concerned, my time is evenly divided between my house, the shop, the open road on two wheels, and the Sundown Saloon. It's a smokey old pool hall that'll get you wasted for pennies compared to most other taverns surrounding it. We're a Bourbon and PBR(still #1 in the Nation) bar, not a martini or scoobi snack or upside down pineapple shot type of place... or whatever the fuck else you might want to fruit up your night. I'm not being a tough guy or bragging about my place of employment, I'm 160 pounds wet and you can smell my bar before you see it(that's no lie). But, I am proud to work there. There aren't too many bars like it in Colorado, or the rest of the country for that matter. Our service blows any other joint I've been to out of the water. We might not be the best, but I haven't seen a group of drink slingers yet who can pump em out faster than we can. It's great to hear people in awe at how we move behind the bar, and our numbers show it. Nothing's worse than sitting at a bar and waiting for a drink because some jack-ass can't work faster than old people fuck or some girl is more interested in getting attention than actually doing her job. I see it everywhere I go, and it makes me laugh...

It's a stinky old dungeon, older than most of you reading this post. It's the type of place that if you end your night there and don't remember a fucking thing, all you have to do is smell your clothes and you know exactly where you were. It's a staple in the community, even though most in the community are afraid to step foot in it. There's nothing scary about it, but if you've been to Boulder in the last 15 years, you understand. Like most nice places, money has taken hold of the town and every day there's a new 5-star restaurant or upscale bar being opened, then closed soon after. The Sundown Saloon has been there, good times and bad, and we aren't slowing down any time soon. People call it "the downer", "the Scum-downer", or "the dirty downer". Whatever they call it, it's a place where almost anyone from a blue-collar background walks in and says, "fuck yeah, this is my kind of joint". It reminded me of home the first time I set foot in it and it hasn't changed since, or for the last forty-fifty years. I've found .22 shells under the wooden floor boards, people have been killed there during bar-fights, and a long-time regular has ashes in a metal Harley Davidson emblem imbedded into the bar. Our Rock-Ola Bubbler Jukebox is older than I am and has everything from Cash, High on Fire, DeadBolt, Dwight Yoakam, Coltrane, ZZ Top, Devin the Dude, Issac Hayes, Deadweather, to muthafuckin WuTang - by far the best Juke in the area.

Check out the list in the article and hit up these bars if you live near any of them. I'd be willing to bet that The Sundown is the dirtiest on the list by far - but in a good way.

Great watering holes are few and far between, but if you find em, they're night-life gold each and every time you set out to get lit up...

10 great places to have a drink underground - USATODAY.com

Pretty fucking cool...

2 comments:

  1. I'm in next time I'm in the area

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  2. Sounds like places I went to when younger. Smelled like beer, whiskey and piss, vomit thick smoke filled air, beer came in cans or plastic pitchers, whiskey in plastic glasses with or without coke and you got peanuts to eat and threw the shells on the floor. A man in a suit was probabily a narc. Nobody in there knew what a pina colada or fuzzy navels were. Miss those days

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