No matter what style of bar you prefer to offer your
custom, be you hipster, biker, or beer-salter, there is one overriding reason
you frequent your favorite watering hole: service. Some people like to be gushed
over, while other prefer to be left alone until they need a refill. Folks might
find the service in your usual joint to be so horrific it must take a special
sort of evil effort, but if it appeals to you, they can go pound sand, while
you happily become a return shopper. The Bulldog Bar seems to attract its
share of repeat offenders, which can only be because they are among those who
are content with a staggering dearth of service.
Drinks: The Bulldog is well-appointed, boozely-speaking,
with a commendable array of draft beer and hard stuff. Bottles of the really
good hard stuff are housed, not on the top shelf as might be expected, but in
little framed cubbies spaced haphazardly about the wall behind the bar, almost
like three-dimensional works of art, which, of course, they are. They offer
several daily specials, notably $2 mugs of PBR during happy hour, and $4 shots
of Jager all the live long day. It’s not a place to order those snotty
five-ingredient, six-step cocktails that have so many of our LoDo friends in
flights of giddiness these days. It’s a beer and whiskey joint. Good for
hunkering.
Décor: The Bulldog isn’t a big place, but has a kind of
atavistic ambiance that’s perfect for a divey booze-den. The bar itself is
semi-circular, as is the wall behind it, and is narrower across than many, with
thick, padded elbow rests. In its heyday the room surely drew a regular
compliment of Rat-Packers; thin black ties and the whole shebang. Almost five
decades later (a gazillion years in
bar-years) it wears its age and half-forgotten heritage with a kind of
bleary-eyed, trollish pride. A few tables fill the red-walled open space beside
the bar, and a raised area along the far wall that doubles as additional
seating or as a stage when they book live music. There is a second, smaller
room behind the bar containing two pool tables.
Service: Ah, the magic word. They don’t seem exactly
energized to endear themselves. At times, it’s unclear precisely who the
bartender is. If the official ‘keep must take a powder (or, perhaps, fetch
lunch, as the Bulldog doesn’t serve food) and a new customer comes in, one of
the regulars is likely to step up and take orders. But even when the bartender
is on site, expansive gyrations are often required to get his or her attention.
Slurping at the dregs of your dead soldier like an aquarium pump with a bit of
colored gravel stuck in its craw can be beneficial. They are nice enough folks,
to be sure, but a tad more drive wouldn’t hurt.
Crowd: Since the tavern opens at 8 a.m. you’ll be sure to
find plenty of seasoned barflies, stoical types crouched over mugs of beer,
shots of rye and untidy piles of loose folding money. After dark, the Bulldog
Bar changes character, sort of like Harvey Dent morphing into Two Face. It
attracts your standard Colfax denizens with a dollop of sideways baseball caps
and baggy pants. Sometimes, sadly, rapper-types and punker-types, when mixed,
can sometimes make for a lumpy batter. Now, it would be inaccurate to suggest
that the Bulldog Bar is only for those with an abundance of testicular
fortitude. You might see a fight, true, but who amongst us has not? It’s like
this: leave your weapons at home. You will only get in as much trouble as you
create.
Bottom Line: It’s a better bar during the day when it’s
just barflies. The service can use a little work. And that’s true anytime.
Interesting joint.
Bulldog Bar
303-333-4345
3602 E.
Colfax Ave.
Denver,
CO 80206
