BOTTOMS UP!

If bars could be lines of clothing-- and they just might be, somewhere-- then the Wynkoop would be Abercrombie & Fitch: ubiquitous, vaguely offensive and popular with ex-fraternity types who don't know how to hold their liquor. The thing is, the place is somewhat of an institution. It's been around since the late '80s, when there was nothing in LoDo except Union Station and a few indigents. Kind of hard to bash a bar that almost single-handedly changed the culture of downtown Denver (okay, Coors Field might have helped a little). Makes me feel a bit like a traitor, especially considering the number of hours I've logged drinking and playing foosball there. But, as a confused Abe Lincoln might have said to a professional bowler, who gives a toss? I'm not in this business to make friends, or even to keep the ones I already have, many of whom are employed by this very establishment. I'm in this business to write approximately 800 words a week about Denver-area watering holes, dammit. So let the bashing commence.

Feel like playing pool on a weekend night? Don't go to the Wynkoop. You might develop osteoporosis waiting for a free table. Want to put a few songs on the jukebox? Please. You might as well stick five dollars down a prairie dog hole. Looking for a quiet place to drink and chat? Why not just grab a bottle of Cisco and hang out in Confluence Park instead? This is a bar that never stops; lunch, dinner, weekday, weekend. There is always a crowd.

Usually, that crowd is a pretty well-coiffed one. Sure, there's the occasional hippie at the bar, and there's a few Capitol Hill types lurking around, but the rank-and-file customer looks shinier than a newly minted c-note and smells better than a freshly baked biscuit. There's a lot of corporate style, if such a thing exists, slouching in the Wynkoop's comfortable wooden stools at lunchtime. And evidently these suits are teaching their children to show up here on weekends.

So they do, in their A&F and Tommy, with visors flipped backward and freshly bench-pressed pecs. They drink lager by the boatload, staying away from the real beers (one thing that cannot be taken from the Wynkoop is the outstanding quality of their yeasty product). They pour out of the doors en masse at 2 am, hootin' and hollorin' like, well, like drunken twentysomethings. They flirt, they pose, they lose at foosball to odd-smelling strangers, but they come. Every week. The Wynkoop might be the most predictable bar in the city of Denver.

Because, let's face it-- you know what you're going to get here, crowd-wise. You know what you're going to get food-wise. (Another inescapable kudo: the food here is actually quite tasty. Expensive, considering what it is, but tasty natheless.) You know what you're going to get, parking-wise. You know. So why bother?

If you want a tasty burger, you can always head to the Cherry Cricket or the Citygrille. If you like fresh beer, then you might head on down to the Breckenridge Brewing Company. If you want to hang out with emptily attractive youths, then what, other than that restraining order, is stopping you from spending a little quality time in the East High parking lot?

The mighty Wynkoop is mighty blah. Sure, there's a gigantic knife suspended from the ceiling, a kind of culinary Sword of Damocles that doesn't bother the cognoscenti nearly as much as it ought, but that's a poor substitute for genuine character. This place might have been assembled from a store-bought kit-- "Build Your Own Yuppie Hangout!" John Hickenlooper's pioneering brewpub vision has littered our state with scads of imitators, some of which-- Coopersmith's in Fort Collins, The Walnut in Boulder-- are improvements on the original, which, sad to say, has lost the bloom of newness and is now just another downtown meat market.

So. Go to the Wynkoop this weekend. But not if you want to play pool, drink beer, meet interesting people or relax. If, on the other hand, you desire a standing-room-only crowd, endless U2 and Dave Matthews on the juke and a long wait between drinks, then pull out that wallet and get ready to feel it lightening. Did I mention the prices? Ah, jeez. That's a whole other column. D