BOTTOMS UP!

The Internet has spawned a legion of starry-eyed entrepreneurs, all vying to sell that one fart-in-the-wind idea that will make them millionaires. One of the many get-rich-quick schemes to sprout out of the information superhighway hysteria was to open a coffee shop, add a few computer terminals and stir, concocting what we now know as the cyber café. Ahhh, a place to have a decent cup of coffee and surf the Web. This all sounds rather crafty, but therein looms one big problem. Computer geeks are generally shutins with a best friend already at home in the shape of a box. They have a whole stable of one-dimensional girl-friends as well (and I'm not talking about personality).

This was the shortsightedness that crashed the first wave of cyber cafés. Only those that were able to diversify into more than a "caffeine & computer" zone got over this major hurdle. In Denver, Café Netherworld was the lone survivor.

With a bar that serves anything from coffee to Jagermeister, a lunch menu, video games and a pool hall, they survived by branching out into a café with a variety of diversions. With its eerie appeal, Goths and later Mohawks staked a claim on the establishment, lending a perfect fit to the Netherworld name (though it has also become a genuine purgatory for the five dingy iMacs that sit against the righthand wall).

For $4 an hour you get the use of a terminal with a T1 connection, a LaserJet printer, and I found surfing to be about twice as fast as my 56k modem. They even have their own ISP, NTW (Net The World). Other than loitering on the Web or working on your resume, these once cute little blue iMacs don't serve much purpose toward Netherworld's success.

But I digress, turning to the facts of what Café Netherworld is truly all about. Inside has a no frills warehouse feel that doesn't try to be more than a raw subdued environment for pasty creatures of the night to hole up until the sun goes down. Sandwiched between a plywood floor painted black and an even blacker ceiling is a bar outlined in purple and blue neon, serving more beer than coffee. The dusky atmosphere makes for an excellent hangout to lounge around in wired conversation on social ideals during the day and collaborate in a drunken forum on how to change the world at night.

This room has been a mainstay in the Capitol Hill community for five years and returns the favor to the public by opening its wall space for monthly art exhibits, flyers of upcoming concerts or any other event someone might want to staple up. Even the proceeds for the upcoming Halloween Party are going in large sum to the avante garde Paper Cat Theater. By maintaining such a presence in the alternative community, Café Netherworld has created a hub in one of the most actively social environments in Denver. They choose to conspire with the creative aspects of our city rather than go it alone, and that's what makes this area so dynamic and compelling.

The back room is under such a metamorphosis that to go on talking about the interior would be moot. Majority owner Eric Putze has been able to haggle his way into procuring a neighboring defunct laundromat, and is now in the process of creating a grander pool hall off what presently harbors three tables and some red pleather booths. What will rise from this vacated room under a cloak of clouded glass skylights will be an area of fine dining. It sounds like an establishment vying to extend its identity, and I can't wait to see the result of fusing a predominantly Goth bar with a classy pool room and white tablecloths, where the forks and spoons are placed in proper order.

I'll have the gargoyle bisque and your finest wine, please.

Come out and support Café Netherworld and Paper Cat Theater on Halloween, where at the corner of 16th and Pennsylvania one thing is certain, the costume contest will express one of the darkest themes in Denver. Tequila Mockingbird will headline the festivities.