Home > Denver Bars & Clubs > Bar Review > Inside: Lancer Lounge

Ever been to one of those bars where they pour you a drink, you sample the drink, and find that there is something missing? Your hogwash detector goes off like a string of Black Cats. You stare at the thing. It stares back, the cheeky little twerp. You frown. It smirks. Then, at last, it hits you. You cannot taste any alcohol in your alcohol. The waste of density behind the bar poured you a tonic-and-tonic, a Coke-and-Coke. What nerve. Five bucks down the spout and all you have to show for it is a cocktail that tastes like the product of Bill Wilson’s Guide to Mixed Drinks. Hell and damnation. Our drinking culture is heading abyssward faster than Rosie O’Donnell zeroing in on a patty melt.

Drinks: The Lancer Lounge feels your pain. Even better, it takes that pain and drowns it beneath the heaviest pours in Denver. These barkeeps do not in any way shirk their time-honored responsibilities. You order a cocktail at The Lancer and that’s what you bloody well get—a vodka-and-vodka, a rum-and-rum, a bourbon-and-bourbon. A standard pour is something like 3 or 4 seconds. A Lancer pour is 5 or even 6– for a single. The bartenders will actually dissuade you from ordering doubles. You don’t need one. The singles are already doubles. And that, folks, is a C-4 charge worth of bang for the buck. The Lancer offers a full slate of daily specials and happy hour bargains, but even their non-happy prices address the ol’ billfold with respect. And one last item of note: the afternoon bartender makes a Bloody Mary of such dizzying flawlessness you’ll be tempted to take it home and enshrine it on your mantelpiece. But go ahead and drink it. Fulfill its destiny.

Décor: Early-mid-century-premodern-quasi-retro-Naugahyde-splendor. C’mon, man. It’s a neighborhood watering hole. It is what it is. It’s comfortable with itself, happy inside its own skin.

Crowd: The joint opens early, doing a solid for us post-twenty-something boozehounds eager to defy the gloomy prophecies of glad-handing twelve-steppers. Like the best bars, everyone seems to know each other—friendly chatter about kids, jobs, sports and the Way Things Are. Feel free to sit quietly, however, and get some thinking done, if you need to. Nobody will look at you funny. And if you’re having a good time, stay until after nightfall, when you’ll find girls and guys, guys and girls, and the whole lot saddled up and ready to do as they will, as dictated by hormones, testimonials on financial repute, and genetic predilections. Like Rorschach’s ink blots, the Lancer crowd is open to interpretation. Roll the conversational dice and see what happens.

Service: Here’s how you know your bartender is a pro. You order a cocktail, and it arrives accompanied by an apology—the ‘keep was unable to locate a few of the necessary ingredients, so this one is “a bit vanilla.” You go ahead and drink it, though (it’s bad form to waste perfectly good hooch), and request another. This one is a little longer in arriving because, as the bartender explains, the AWOL components were finally located and this one has been mixed according to the ‘keep’s normal exacting standards. The difference between it and its predecessor is similar to the difference between a beautifully marbled porterhouse and a can of Spam. And by the way, that first crappy drink? It’s on the house. “I’d feel bad charging for something that bad.”

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is a bartender worth his or her weight in sparkly treasure. Cling to them as you would to your seat-cushion floatation device.

Bottom Line: If it’s Friday night and time to get good and squiffy, then it’s time for The Lancer Lounge. Leave your pretensions at home in your loft. Let your collar turn blue and your neck turn red. Enjoy a proper cocktail. Gab with the stranger on the next stool. To quote Stan Lee: “Excelsior!”

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