Denver Broncos
Denver Broncos · Empower Field at Mile High
The Denver Playbook
A Michelin city that still eats like a cowtown — and a stadium four light-rail minutes from downtown.
76,125 fans. A mile above sea level, and the visiting team feels it. Hosted the AFC Championship in a January snowstorm.
Save the list, navigate from your phone, and see live hours + reviews from Google.
Some booking links earn BFB a commission. How this works →
Eat
Five tables in Denver require actual planning. The Wolf's Tailor in Sunnyside is the state's only two-star restaurant and books its prepaid tasting menu through Tock, where weekday seats open up long before weekend ones. Alma Fonda Fina drops reservations sixty days out on OpenTable for a room that seats twenty-eight, and the counter is where you want to be. Beckon's eighteen counter seats book through OpenTable, and they go fast for a home weekend. Kizaki posts its omakase seats on OpenTable on the fifteenth of the prior month and can serve forty people a night, total. And Sap Sua on Colfax opens dinner slots on Tock thirty days ahead, though half its bar is held for walk-ins if you turn up at open. Barolo Grill and Tavernetta are the next tier down — weeks, not months, and both hold bar and patio seats back for people who show up.
The Wolf's Tailor
Jeff Fierberg
Colorado's first and only two-MICHELIN-star restaurant, promoted from one star in the 2025 MICHELIN Guide Colorado. It also holds a MICHELIN Green Star for sustainability — one of only four in the state. Kelly and Erika Whitaker's Id Est Hospitality won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur in 2024.
Reservations: Tock, prepaid tasting menu — weekday seats surface far more readily than Friday or Saturday; book six to eight weeks out for a game weekend
Kizaki
Toshi Kizaki founded Sushi Den in 1984 and spent forty years rewriting how Denver sources fish. He opened this twenty-course Edomae omakase counter in April 2025 and earned a MICHELIN star five months later, at seventy-something. Forty guests a night, total.
Reservations: OpenTable — seats post on the 15th of the prior month; the late seating at the counter is the softest target
Alma Fonda Fina
Shawn Campbell
Chef Johnny Curiel's first restaurant, open since December 2023 and MICHELIN-starred since 2024. Twenty-eight seats in the dining room and eight at the chef's counter. Curiel was a 2026 James Beard finalist for Best Chef: Mountain.
Reservations: OpenTable — seats drop 60 days out for parties up to five; target mid-afternoon slots, and set a Notify Me alert as backup
Guard and Grace
Chef Troy Guard's modern steak room, open since 2014 in a glass-walled ground floor downtown. Prime, certified Angus, Wagyu and local grass-fed all run on the same menu, which is unusual and lets a table order across price tiers without anyone feeling shorted.
Reservations: OpenTable — a week out is fine on a normal Sunday; two to three weeks for a Chiefs, Bills, or Seahawks weekend
Beckon
Courtesy of Beckon
Eighteen seats at a counter inside a converted bungalow, open since 2018 and MICHELIN-starred every year the Colorado guide has existed. There is also a two-seat sommelier's salon, which is exactly as hard to book as it sounds.
Reservations: OpenTable — the eighteen counter seats are one of the tightest tables in Denver; book as early as the calendar opens for a home weekend
Sap Sua
Ni Nguyen and Anna Nguyen opened this fifty-seat room on Colfax in 2023. Esquire's 50 Best New Restaurants, a 2024 James Beard semifinalist nod for Best New Restaurant, and a Saturday-morning bakery program that relaunched in 2025 after a two-year hiatus.
Reservations: Tock — dinner slots release 30 days out; closed Tuesdays
Bastien's Restaurant
Courtesy of Bastien's Restaurant
Open since 1937 and still family-run. The sugar steak is a genuinely local invention — the crust caramelizes rather than sweetens — and it is the closest thing Denver has to a dish you cannot order anywhere else. The mid-century round dining room is on the National Register-adjacent list of things Denver refuses to let developers touch.
Reservations: Resy — a few days out midweek, a week for Friday or Saturday
Tavernetta
A MICHELIN Bib Gourmand and the Denver arm of Frasca Hospitality Group, whose Boulder flagship won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant. It sits a hundred yards from Union Station, which makes it the default Friday-night dinner for anyone who took the train in from the airport.
Reservations: OpenTable — two to three weeks for a game weekend; the patio, lounge, and bar are held for walk-ins and waitlist
Barolo Grill
Casey Wilson
Open since 1992. Owner and wine director Ryan Fletter started here as an employee, took the Michelin Guide Colorado Sommelier Award in 2023, and was a 2026 James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Professional in Beverage Service. The whole staff travels to Italy together every year.
Reservations: OpenTable — weeks ahead for a window table; closed Sunday and Monday
Mercantile Dining & Provision
Chef Alex Seidel's second Denver restaurant, built into Union Station's Great Hall since 2014. Seidel won the James Beard Award for Best Chef Southwest in 2018 for his work here, a decade after opening his flagship Fruition. Half market counter, half dining room, in the same building as the Crawford Hotel.
Reservations: OpenTable — a few days out for lunch, a week or more for a Friday or Saturday dinner table
The Bindery
Courtesy of The Bindery
Linda Hampsten Fox's LoHi restaurant is a bakery, café, wine bar, and dining room in one building, open from 8 AM. Her thirty-year career ran through Tuscany, France, Switzerland, and Mexico, and the menu reads like it.
Reservations: OpenTable for brunch and dinner; the café counter is walk-in; closed Monday
Hop Alley
Named for the historic Chinatown that Denver burned down in 1880, Tommy Lee's RiNo room has held a Bib Gourmand since the Colorado guide launched. Lee was a 2026 James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Restaurateur across Hop Alley, Uncle, and Molino Chido.
Reservations: OpenTable — a week or more for weekends, closed Sundays
Xiquita Restaurante y Bar
Erasmo Casiano and Rene Gonzalez Mendez opened Xiquita in 2024 and it took Westword's Best New Restaurant the following year. The kitchen nixtamalizes its own corn daily and you can watch the tortillas being pressed from most of the dining room.
Reservations: OpenTable — a week out for weekends, closed Sundays
El Taco de Mexico
Forty years on Santa Fe Drive serving Mexico City street cooking, and the holder of what most of Denver considers the definitive pork green chile. Formica counter, open kitchen, no concessions to anybody's idea of a dining room.
Reservations: Walk-in only — order at the counter
Drink
Denver's reputation is beer, and the reputation is a decade behind the city. Yacht Club in Cole took Best U.S. Cocktail Bar at the 2024 Spirited Awards and landed on North America's 50 Best Bars again in 2026. Rougarou and two RiNo-and-Sunnyside newcomers — Semiprecious and the Peach Crease Club — are all three on the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation's 2026 shortlist for Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar, a genuinely rare concentration of national nominations for one city in one year. The beer is still excellent — it is simply no longer the headline. The Sports Bars & Watch Rooms below are grouped separately because an NFL weekend has three watch appointments a normal trip does not: the Saturday college slate, the Sunday windows wrapped around your own kickoff, and Monday night.
Semiprecious
Jeff Fierberg
The Denver outpost of L.A.'s Thunderbolt team (a North America's 50 Best Bars entry in 2023), opened in 2026 inside a converted 1950s furniture showroom. Shortlisted for the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation's 2026 Spirited Award for Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar — one of three Denver bars in the running that year, alongside Rougarou and the Peach Crease Club.
A self-described neighborhood bar with no pretense — Western European-inspired cocktails in a mid-century-modern room a few blocks from The Wolf's Tailor.
Reservations: Walk-in only — no reservation platform
Yacht Club
Mary Allison Wright and McLain Hedges opened the self-described anti-club club in 2021. Best U.S. Cocktail Bar at the 2024 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards, No. 41 on North America's 50 Best Bars in 2025 and back on the list in 2026, and a 2026 James Beard finalist for Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service.
Small, loud, and genuinely mixed — a room where a $5 beer and a $16 cocktail sit on the same bar top without anybody feeling out of place. Open until 2 AM every night but Tuesday, when it is closed.
Reservations: Walk-in only — arrive before 8 PM on a weekend or expect to wait
The Peach Crease Club
Courtesy of The Peach Crease Club
A vinyl-and-cocktail bar at the far north edge of RiNo, next to Mission Ballroom, opened by husband-and-wife owners Stuart Jensen and Alex Jump. Named to the 2026 Best of Denver list and shortlisted for the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation's 2026 Spirited Award for Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar.
Culinary-inspired cocktails in a room built around a record collection — closed Tuesdays, otherwise open from 4 PM.
Reservations: OpenTable
Rougarou
Mary Allison Wright and McLain Hedges' second bar, opened April 2025 and named Westword's Best New Bar in the 2026 Best of Denver. Executive chef JohnDavid Wright is Mary Allison's brother, which is roughly how a third of the good things in Denver right now are connected.
Southern-swamp fancy — a little funky, a little formal, and busy from open. Closed Wednesdays.
Reservations: OpenTable; walk-in seats at the bar
Jefferson Park Pub
Courtesy of Jefferson Park Pub
An Iowa-themed neighborhood pub seven-tenths of a mile from Empower Field, owner-run and unmistakably a locals' room. On a Broncos Sunday it becomes the closest thing Jefferson Park has to a pre-game clubhouse.
Small, friendly, and pointedly not a sports-bar chain — expect to end up talking to whoever is next to you. Open until 2 AM Thursday through Saturday.
Reservations: No reservations; walk-in
Malinche Audiobar
Chef Jose Avila — of La Diabla, a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand — built a custom sound system for this room and plays his personal collection of vintage Mexican records through it. The food is what he calls Nikkei-Mexa: Mexican ingredients, Japanese technique.
Small, dark, cave-like, and loud in the good way. It is the most specific room in Denver and the one most likely to reset what you thought a night here looks like.
Reservations: Resy; walk-in seats available, but the room is small, so early is better
Run for the Roses
An underground cocktail den built into the Dairy Block redevelopment, a block from Union Station. The menu is presented as a deck of playing cards, with classic and seasonal cocktails filed by spirit and character. A recurring pick in The Infatuation's current Denver bar coverage.
Low-lit and clubby, genuinely underground — down a stairwell off the Dairy Block alley. Small enough that it fills fast on a weekend night.
Reservations: Walk-in only — no reservation platform
Bierstadt Lagerhaus
Ashleigh Carter and Bill Eye opened this lager-only brewery in 2016 in a converted RiNo warehouse. Three core beers — Helles, Dunkel, and the Slow Pour Pils — and a hall big enough for barrel beer pong, which is a real thing that happens here.
A genuine beer hall: high ceilings, communal tables, and enough room that a group of eight is not a logistical problem. Closed Tuesdays.
Reservations: No reservations; walk-in, and large groups fit here better than almost anywhere in RiNo
Briar Common Brewery
A neighborhood brewpub in Jefferson Park with a rooftop, a dog-friendly patio, and — critically — a location six-tenths of a mile from Empower Field. It is one of a very short list of real bars inside walking distance of the stadium.
Two levels plus a roof, families early and a game-day crowd later. On a Sunday home game the walk down Clay Street to the stadium takes about twelve minutes.
Reservations: OpenTable — or walk in and get there early on a home Sunday
The Original Brooklyn's
The stadium bar. It sits on West Colfax three-tenths of a mile from Empower Field's east gates, which makes it the shortest walk to kickoff of any real bar in Denver, and it has been absorbing Broncos crowds through four different stadium names.
Loud and packed from late morning on a home Sunday, empty and pleasant on any other day. Kitchen closes at 9 PM, 5 PM Sundays — so it is a pre-game room, not a post-game one.
Reservations: No reservations; walk-in, and on a home Sunday that means arriving three hours out
Society Sports and Spirits
The downtown utility watch room: wall-to-wall screens in a small LoDo space, open until 2 AM Thursday through Saturday and noon on both weekend days. It runs the Premier League in the mornings and the full NFL slate on Sunday, and the staff will put your game on with sound if you ask.
Cozy rather than cavernous, which is the trade — you will not lose your table, but you should claim it early on a Saturday college slate. Kids allowed until 10 PM.
Reservations: Book via the site's online reservation widget, or walk in — arrive by noon on a full-slate Saturday
The DNVR Bar
The physical home of the DNVR podcast network, which covers the Broncos, Nuggets, Avalanche, and Rockies daily. The studio is upstairs. This is where Denver's sports media and Denver's sports fans occupy the same room, which no other bar in the city can claim.
Big, plain, and entirely about the games on the screens. Opens at 10 AM Saturday and Sunday, which covers an early kickoff and the whole college slate.
Reservations: No reservations; walk-in, and check their calendar for official watch parties before a marquee date
Also worth a stop: Hogshead Brewery in Sloan Lake is one of the last places in Colorado pouring genuine cask ale, and if English beer is your thing it is worth the mile-and-a-half detour from the stadium. And the old Blake Street Tavern space near Coors Field reopened in June 2026 as Tavern on Blake Street under new owners after three years dark — too new to promise anything, but by midseason it may well be the biggest watch room downtown again.
Denver After Dark
Red Rocks Amphitheatre (18300 W Alameda Pkwy, Morrison, CO 80465)
The reason a lot of people book a Denver weekend that happens to have a football game in it. A 9,500-seat amphitheater wedged between two 300-foot sandstone monoliths, fifteen miles west of downtown and about 6,450 feet up. The season runs roughly April through October, which covers the September and early-October home dates. Nothing else in American live music is comparable, and the acoustics are not a marketing claim. Full calendar at redrocksonline.com. Plan on thirty to forty minutes each way plus a genuine climb from the lower lots — wear real shoes, bring a layer, and leave earlier than feels necessary.
The Mission Ballroom (4242 Wynkoop St, Denver, CO 80216)
RiNo's 3,950-capacity room, opened in 2019, with a movable stage that lets the house reconfigure between 2,200 and 3,950 depending on the act. Sightlines are good from essentially everywhere and the bathrooms are the cleanest in Denver live music, which people mention unprompted. It is a fifteen-minute walk from the Catbird and a short ride from RiNo hotels. Calendar at missionballroom.com.
Ogden Theatre (935 E Colfax Ave, Denver, CO 80218)
The 1,600-capacity Colfax landmark, open since 1917, and the mid-size room most touring acts play when they are one album away from an arena. Standing floor, wraparound balcony, and a sound system that punches well above the building's age. Schedule at ogdentheatre.com.
Bluebird Theater (3317 E Colfax Ave, Denver, CO 80206)
A 550-capacity 1913 vaudeville house a mile east of the Ogden, with tiered flooring that solves the sightline problem most small rooms never do. The best place in the city to see a band before they get big. Calendar at bluebirdtheater.net. PS Lounge sits directly across Colfax and is the traditional pre-show drink.
Comedy Works Downtown (1226 15th St, Denver, CO 80202)
Three hundred seats in a Larimer Square basement, running since 1981, and one of the handful of American clubs where touring headliners drop in unannounced to work out material. Seating is first come, first served within your ticket tier, so the line down 15th Street forms early. Shows and tickets at comedyworks.com.
Friday Night Music & Comedy
If nothing on the touring calendar lands on your weekend, the Colfax corridor covers it. Lion's Lair, at 2022 East Colfax, has been booking live music continuously since the 1960s and remains the cheapest good time on the street. And Ball Arena, ten minutes from downtown, has Nuggets and Avalanche home dates across the entire Broncos season — worth checking before you plan a Saturday, because a Nuggets home game turns the Ballpark neighborhood into a second event night.
Tailgate
Location
Empower Field sits in a ring of lots between I-25 and Federal Boulevard, southwest of downtown. Roughly 6,500 spaces are on stadium property, with another 15,000 in independent lots nearby — the largest blocks being Ball Arena and the Auraria campus east of the highway, both about a ten-minute walk across the pedestrian bridges.
Gates Open
Parking lots open four and a half hours before kickoff. Stadium gates open two hours before kickoff; United Club and Suite Level ticket holders get into the club lounges three hours out. Gate 4 offers early entry for fans who want to watch pre-game warmups from the field level.
What It Is
A parking-lot tailgate in the traditional American sense — grills, canopies, coolers, and a lot of orange. Denver's version is less RV-heavy than Buffalo or Kansas City and more compressed, because the lots are physically smaller and the walk from the far edge to the gates is short. The whole scene assembles fast in the two hours before kickoff and then empties into the stadium almost at once.
How It Works
One permit equals one space for one vehicle. Grills, chairs, and coolers must stay directly in front of or behind your own vehicle — drive lanes are kept clear and this is enforced. Lot A is the $30 carpool lot and requires four people in the car; no tailgating is permitted in Lot A. Lot C is the early tailgating lot and typically sells out within the first hour it goes on sale. Everything else is permit-only and worth buying in advance, because game-day parking prices can run to $60.
What to Expect
Tailgates break down as kickoff approaches — plan on being packed up and moving toward the gates well before the anthem, and check the stadium's current tailgating page for the posted break-down window, which has moved between thirty and sixty minutes in recent seasons. The stadium is fully cashless inside, so any card works and no card at all does not.
Pro Tip
Denver in September is a shirtsleeve afternoon and Denver in December is not. The altitude also does something visitors underestimate: alcohol lands harder at 5,280 feet and dehydration arrives faster. Drink water between beers in the lot and you will enjoy the fourth quarter considerably more.
Mile High Mountain Village
The Broncos run an official pre-game party in Mile High Mountain Village, on the stadium's north side, and it is free to anyone holding a game ticket. This is the answer for a visiting fan without a lot pass and without a car: take the train, walk in, and there is an actual organized scene waiting rather than a parking lot full of strangers' family reunions.
Jefferson Park — the No-Pass Plan
The neighborhood immediately north of the stadium is the only walkable bar cluster attached to Empower Field. Briar Common Brewery on Clay Street is about a twelve-minute walk from the gates and runs a full kitchen; Jefferson Park Pub on Eliot is seven-tenths of a mile out; Brooklyn's sits three-tenths of a mile south on West Colfax and has been absorbing Broncos crowds through four stadium names. That is a genuine pre-game zone, and it is also a short one — three or four rooms, not a district. Anyone expecting a Wrigleyville should recalibrate before they arrive rather than after.
The Visiting-Fan Reality
The lots are mixed rather than segregated, and Denver crowds are broadly good-natured about visiting colors — with the honest caveat that Chiefs and Raiders weekends run hotter than the rest of the calendar. The stadium runs an anonymous fan-conduct line by text if anything goes sideways, and the number is posted throughout the lots and concourses.
Get Tickets
Gametime
AffiliateLast-minute inventory with all-in pricing — prices move toward kickoff
Browse tickets →
SeatGeek
Interactive seat maps and price alerts
Browse tickets →
TickPick
No hidden fees — the price you see is what you pay
Browse tickets →
StubHub
Largest inventory — strong fallback when smaller marketplaces sell out
Browse tickets →
Pro Tip
Denver went to the AFC Championship last January and lost it 10-7 in a snowstorm, which means the 2026 home slate arrives with the city convinced it has unfinished business — and with eight home dates that price very differently from one another. Three of them are the ones to plan a flight around. The Seattle Seahawks land on a Thursday night in October as the reigning Super Bowl champions and a preseason top-three team; that is the single hardest ticket on the calendar, and a Thursday kick compresses the whole trip into a Wednesday-to-Friday shape. The Los Angeles Rams arrive on Sunday Night Football in September carrying the other end of the preseason top-ten conversation, and a night game in September is the most pleasant weather window Denver offers all season. And the Buffalo Bills come in on Christmas Day, a Friday, on Netflix — the Bills fanbase is one of the two or three that genuinely relocates for a weekend, and the holiday date means hotel inventory tightens on a schedule that has nothing to do with football.
The AFC West dates carry their own weight without the national gloss. The Kansas City Chiefs in November is the rivalry that reliably fills the visiting sections and reprices downtown hotel rooms; the Las Vegas Raiders later that month brings the league's farthest-traveling fanbase, which shows up in the bars downtown on Saturday night as much as in the stadium on Sunday. The Los Angeles Chargers close the season in a Week 18 slot that could decide the division — and that is exactly why it has no date or kickoff time yet. It sits on the January 9-10, 2027 weekend, Saturday or Sunday, network unassigned. Book that one refundable or don't book it until December.
The Jacksonville Jaguars home opener and the Miami Dolphins in December round out the slate. Nothing on this schedule is a game to skip; these are simply the two weekends where Denver's hotels and restaurants behave like a normal city, which is its own kind of argument for going.
One structural note: December kickoff times in the NFL move. Flex scheduling can slide a 2:05 into a 6:20 with a few weeks' notice, and a December Sunday in Denver is the difference between a shirtsleeve afternoon and a genuinely cold night. Book flights you can change.
Hotels
Denver's dining and drinking heat is spread across six or seven neighborhoods, but the lodging math is simple: stay where the rail is. Union Station puts you two stops and roughly four minutes from Empower Field on the E or W line, and it is also the terminus of the A Line from the airport — one train in, one train to the game, no car. RiNo trades that convenience for a fifteen-minute rideshare and puts you inside the city's densest run of bars and restaurants. Golden Triangle splits the difference. All five below are inside that envelope.
The Crawford Hotel
Union Station$$$$1.3 mi to Empower Field4 min light rail (E/W, 2 stops) · 10 min drive
112 rooms built into the upper floors of Denver Union Station. The A Line from DIA and the stadium train both leave from the hall downstairs. Free house car within two miles.
The Oxford Hotel
LoDo$$$1.3 mi to Empower Field4 min light rail (E/W, 2 stops) · 10 min drive
Denver's oldest hotel, open since 1891, one block off Union Station. The Cruise Room — the 1933 art deco bar — is off the lobby, which makes the walk home very short.
Populus Denver
Golden Triangle$$$$1.6 mi to Empower Field12 min drive · 20 min walk to Empower Field station
The aspen-eye facade you have seen on design blogs, with a rooftop bar and two restaurants downstairs. Faces Civic Center Park, walking distance to the art museum and Comedy Works.
The Ramble Hotel
RiNo$$$2.0 mi to Empower Field15 min drive · 12 min rideshare
Fifty rooms above Death & Co's Denver outpost, in the middle of RiNo. If your weekend is built around the bar list rather than the stadium, this is the address.
Catbird Hotel
Five Points / RiNo$$3.1 mi to Empower Field18 min drive · 15 min rideshare
Apartment-style rooms with kitchenettes, a rooftop bar with a mountain view, and a short walk to Mission Ballroom. The value play if the weekend has a concert in it.
Neighborhoods
Union Station & LoDo
1.3 miles to Empower Field · 4 minutes by light rail
The restored 1914 terminal is the reason to base a Denver football weekend downtown. The A Line runs in from the airport in thirty-seven minutes and terminates in the great hall; the E and W lines leave from the same platform and put you at Empower Field in four. Around it sit Tavernetta, Mercantile inside the terminal's Great Hall, the Oxford Hotel, Run for the Roses under the Dairy Block, Society Sports and Spirits, and the whole of Larimer Square. It is the least adventurous neighborhood in this Playbook and the most useful one.
Areas
Wynkoop and Wazee between 16th and 20th, plus the Dairy Block alley and Larimer Square between 14th and 15th.
Best For
Zero-car weekends, the stadium train, a Friday dinner within walking distance of the hotel, and the widest range of hotel price points in the city.
Pro Tip
Auraria West station closes around 12:25 PM on home Sundays to manage crowds. If you are coming from downtown, use Empower Field at Mile High station instead — it is the next stop and it is the one designed for this.
River North (RiNo)
2.0 miles to Empower Field · 15 minutes by car
Denver's growth story, and the neighborhood most likely to eat a whole Saturday. Beckon, Hop Alley, Temaki Den, and Cimera are all here; so are the Peach Crease Club, Bierstadt Lagerhaus, and the Ramble and Source hotels. It is warehouse-scale rather than walkable-charming — expect long blocks, murals on everything, and the occasional stretch where you wonder whether you have gone too far. You have not.
Areas
Larimer Street from 27th to 38th, Blake and Walnut running parallel, and Brighton Boulevard up to the Source and Mission Ballroom.
Best For
The Saturday city day, back-to-back dinner and cocktails, and a concert at Mission Ballroom to close it out.
Pro Tip
RiNo is the one neighborhood where the walk between two good addresses can be fifteen minutes of nothing. Cluster your night on one street — Larimer or Blake — rather than crossing between them twice.
LoHi & Highland
2.2 miles to Empower Field · 12 minutes by car
Across the Highland Bridge from downtown, on the bluff over the Platte. This is where Denver's dining density is highest per block: Alma Fonda Fina and Mezcaleria Alma side by side, the Bindery, Little Man Ice Cream's milk-can silhouette, Malinche Audiobar and the Devil's Drink on Platte Street. Sunnyside sits just north with the Wolf's Tailor and Semiprecious.
Areas
32nd Avenue between Zuni and Navajo, 15th and 16th Streets down the hill, and Platte Street along the river.
Best For
A concentrated dinner-and-cocktails night on foot, and the single best walk in Denver — over the Millennium Bridge, down Platte, up the Highland Bridge stairs at dusk.
Pro Tip
The Millennium Bridge from Union Station makes LoHi a genuine walk rather than a rideshare — about fifteen minutes to 15th Street, twenty to 32nd Avenue. Do it in that direction and take a car home.
Five Points & Cole
2.6 miles to Empower Field · 15 minutes by car
Historically the center of Black Denver — the Welton Street corridor was called the Harlem of the West, and Welton Street Cafe has been feeding the neighborhood since 1986. Rougarou opened here in 2025, Pig and Tiger followed, and Yacht Club sits just north in Cole. It is the neighborhood most likely to make a Denver weekend feel like it happened in a specific city rather than a generic one.
Areas
Welton Street between 26th and 30th, and the residential grid up toward Williams Street in Cole.
Best For
A night that starts with dinner on Welton and ends at a bar that has won national awards without ever feeling like it.
Pro Tip
Yacht Club and Rougarou share owners and are twenty minutes apart. Doing both in one night is a locally sanctioned move, and the menus are built to be drunk in that order.
East Colfax & City Park
4.5 miles to Empower Field · 18 minutes by car
The longest commercial street in America, and the one Denver argues about most. Bus rapid transit construction has been hard on it, but the run from Capitol Hill east past City Park still holds Sap Sua, Bastien's, Mama Jo's, the DNVR Bar, the Ogden and the Bluebird theaters, and a dozen dives that have outlasted several waves of money.
Areas
Colfax from Grant Street east to Colorado Boulevard, with the densest run between Downing and Josephine.
Best For
Live music, the best dive-bar crawl in the region, and the two restaurants — Sap Sua and Bastien's — that bracket Denver's entire dining history between them.
Pro Tip
Colfax is a long street and a slow drive. Pick a two-block anchor, park once, and walk. The 15L bus runs the length of it and is faster than it looks.
Jefferson Park & the Stadium Approach
0.5 miles to Empower Field · 10-minute walk
The residential wedge immediately north of the stadium, and the only walkable bar zone attached to Empower Field. Briar Common Brewery, Jefferson Park Pub, and a handful of newer rooms sit within a twelve-minute walk of the gates; Brooklyn's sits just south on West Colfax. Beyond that, the stadium is ringed by parking lots, the Platte, and I-25 — there is no bar district here in the way Wrigleyville or the Gulch is a bar district, and pretending otherwise would be a lie.
Areas
Clay, Eliot, and 25th Avenue between Federal Boulevard and the stadium lots.
Best For
A pre-game morning without a lot pass, and a post-game exit that does not involve rideshare surge pricing.
Pro Tip
Neighborhood street parking around the stadium is prohibited and enforced. Park in a paid Jefferson Park lot or take the train — the tow trucks here are not a rumor.
Sample Itinerary
Night Before the Game (Friday)
12:30 PM — Lunch (if you arrive early)
Take the A Line in from the airport, drop bags at The Crawford Hotel, and get straight on the light rail south to 10th & Osage. El Taco de Mexico is a four-minute walk from the platform and has been serving the definitive Denver pork green chile on Santa Fe Drive for forty years. Order a chile relleno burrito smothered and eat it at the formica counter. This is the fastest possible way to understand what this city actually tastes like.
6:00 PM — Check in downtown
If you skipped lunch, this is check-in. The Crawford is built into the upper floors of Union Station, which means the airport train, the stadium train, and Friday dinner are all inside a two-hundred-yard radius. Ask the desk about the house car — it runs free inside a two-mile circle and covers most of LoDo and the Ballpark neighborhood.
7:30 PM — Dinner
- The Play: Tavernetta — a Bib Gourmand a hundred yards from your lobby, Frasca Hospitality's Denver room, and the deepest Italian wine list in the state. Book it two to three weeks out for a game weekend.
- Splurge: Kizaki — Toshi Kizaki's twenty-course Edomae omakase counter, a MICHELIN star five months after opening, forty guests a night, total. Book the fifteenth-of-the-month release the moment it lands.
- Easy Move: Xiquita Restaurante y Bar — house-nixtamalized tortillas, a duck carnitas taco worth the trip on its own, and a happy hour that outperforms the check.
9:30 PM — After Dinner
- Cocktails: Run for the Roses — an underground cocktail den in the Dairy Block, a block from Union Station, with a classic-cocktail menu filed like a deck of cards. Start here.
- Beer: Bierstadt Lagerhaus — a proper lager hall in RiNo. Order the Slow Pour Pils first because it takes several minutes to pour, then order something else to drink while you wait.
- Music: Check the Ogden Theatre and Mission Ballroom calendars before you leave home. A Colfax show pairs naturally with a late drink at a neighborhood spot like Lion's Lair.
- Wild Card: Two of Denver's three national Best New Bar nominees, twenty minutes apart — Semiprecious in Sunnyside, an L.A.-import neighborhood bar with a martini express menu and no pretense, or The Peach Crease Club out in north RiNo, a vinyl-and-cocktail room next to Mission Ballroom. One is a quiet nightcap; the other comes with a soundtrack.
Pro Tip
Denver sits at 5,280 feet and most visitors arrive from something closer to zero. Two drinks land like three on the first night. Drink water on the plane, drink water at dinner, and you will not spend Saturday morning blaming the altitude for something the bar did.
Game Day (Sunday)
Denver plays Sunday, which means Saturday is the city day and Sunday is the stadium day. This block is anchored to a 2:05 PM MT kickoff — the most common slot on the 2026 home schedule. Shift everything if you drew the 6:20 Sunday night or the 6:15 Thursday.
6 hours before kickoff — Breakfast
- Fastest: El Taco de Mexico — open at 9 AM Sunday, smothered breakfast burrito, and the 10th & Osage platform two stops from Empower Field.
- Nearest the stadium: Jefferson Park has a couple of neighborhood rooms serving breakfast within a ten-minute walk of the gates. Handy if you have already parked out there.
4.5 hours before kickoff — The lots open
If you bought a permit, this is when you can get in and set up. Lot C is the early tailgating lot and sells out fast; Lot A is the $30 carpool lot and allows no tailgating at all. Grills and chairs stay in front of or behind your own vehicle, drive lanes stay clear.
3 hours before kickoff — Game Day Bar Stops
- The Original Brooklyn's — three-tenths of a mile from the east gates on West Colfax, and the shortest walk to kickoff of any real bar in Denver. It has been doing this through four stadium names.
- Briar Common Brewery — a twelve-minute walk north into Jefferson Park, with a rooftop, a full kitchen, and house beer. The best plan if you parked in the neighborhood rather than the lots.
- Jefferson Park Pub — seven-tenths of a mile out on Eliot Street, owner-run, genuinely local, and the closest thing to a neighborhood clubhouse the stadium has.
2 hours before kickoff — Gates open
Mile High Mountain Village on the north side runs the Broncos' official pre-game party, free with a game ticket — the answer if you took the train in and have no lot to go to. Gate 4 opens early for pre-game warmups. One clear bag, 12" x 6" x 12" maximum, or a one-gallon freezer bag, plus a small clutch.
30 minutes before kickoff — In the stadium
Find your section and stay for the Mile High salute. The stadium is cashless throughout; the altitude will make the stairs to the upper deck more interesting than you expect.
Post-Game
If you have time for only ONE thing post-game
Take the train back to Union Station rather than fighting the lots. The E and W lines run four minutes to downtown, and you will be sitting down with a drink before the parking structures have cleared their first level.
Immediate Post-Game (next 90 minutes)
- If the Broncos won: LoDo turns into one long celebration between Blake and Wynkoop. Society Sports and Spirits on Blake Street is five blocks from the station, open until midnight Sunday, and running every other game in the league on its screens.
- If the Broncos lost: Go east instead. The DNVR Bar on Colfax is where Denver's sports media and Denver's sports fans occupy the same room, and a loss there is a genuinely interesting hour of conversation rather than a wake.
Dinner 2-3 hours post-game
- Splurge: Guard and Grace — Troy Guard's downtown steak room, kitchen running until ten, and a dining room that absorbs a crowd still wearing jerseys without blinking. Prime, Wagyu, and grass-fed on one menu means the table can order across price tiers.
- Easy Move: Bastien's Restaurant — the sugar steak, a 1937 house invention you cannot order anywhere else, in a mid-century round dining room on East Colfax. Closed Monday, so Sunday is the play.
Late Night
Yacht Club in Cole is open until 2 AM every night but Tuesday, and a hot dog and a buttermilk-washed cocktail at midnight is the correct end to a Denver Sunday. The Peach Crease Club runs to 10 PM on Sunday if you are staying in RiNo.
Saturday — The City Day
If you arrive Friday, Saturday is the day Denver actually shows you what it is. Build it around one neighborhood and one hard reservation.
9:00 AM — Breakfast
The Bindery in LoHi opens at 8 AM — bakery, café, and dining room in one building, with a duck hash at brunch and a pastry case worth a second trip on the way out. Walk the Millennium Bridge from Union Station and come back over the Highland Bridge.
12:30 PM — Lunch
Mercantile Dining & Provision runs lunch 11 AM to 2 PM Saturday, built into Union Station's Great Hall — Alex Seidel's James Beard-winning kitchen doing a scratch market menu. Sit at the counter if the dining room is full.
2:00 PM — The Saturday college slate
Society Sports and Spirits opens at noon on Saturday with wall-to-wall screens, and it is the most reliable early open downtown for a full football day. The DNVR Bar opens at 10 AM if you want to start earlier.
7:00 PM — Dinner
- The Play: Alma Fonda Fina — Johnny Curiel's MICHELIN-starred LoHi room, twenty-eight seats, reservations sixty days out. The camote asada and an avocado margarita, and take the counter if you can get it.
- Splurge: Barolo Grill — open since 1992 in Cherry Creek, the deepest Piedmont cellar in the Mountain West, and a staff that travels to Italy together every year. Closed Sunday, which is exactly why it belongs on Saturday.
- Easy Move: Hop Alley — a RiNo Bib Gourmand with a bar program that won a MICHELIN cocktail award. Bone marrow fried rice and the chef's counter.
10:00 PM — Late Night
- Cocktails: Yacht Club — Best U.S. Cocktail Bar at the 2024 Spirited Awards and back on North America's 50 Best Bars in 2026, in a room where a $5 beer sits on the same bar as a $16 cocktail.
- The double-header: Rougarou in Five Points is the same owners' second bar and Westword's Best New Bar of 2026. Twenty minutes apart, and the two menus are built to be drunk in sequence.
- Wild Card: Malinche Audiobar — Jose Avila's Nikkei-Mexa cave of a room on Platte Street, a custom sound system playing his own vinyl collection, and a mezcal flight worth building a night around.
Monday — Send-Off
Shift down. The A Line runs to the airport every fifteen minutes from Union Station and takes thirty-seven, so you have more morning than you think.
- Send-Off: El Taco de Mexico — one more smothered burrito before the flight, Christmas style, half red and half green if you cannot decide. It is a short ride from Union Station on the same W line that took you to the game — bookend the trip with the meal that opened it.
Logistics
Getting to Empower Field
The single most useful fact about a Denver football weekend: the stadium has its own light rail station, and from Union Station it is two stops and about four minutes.
- Light rail — E and W lines. Both serve Empower Field at Mile High station directly, on the stadium's east side. RTD adds train cars for home games. A local three-hour pass runs $2.75; buy it in the MyRide app or tap a credit card or phone directly on a platform validator with Tap-n-Ride.
- Decatur • Federal station. The W line's other stop, roughly a ten-minute walk south of the stadium, plus bus routes 1, 15L, 16, and 31. Useful if you are coming from the Colfax corridor rather than downtown.
- Auraria West station closes on game days. RTD shuts it around 12:25 PM for a 2:05 kickoff and reopens it near 7 PM. Use Empower Field at Mile High station instead — it is the next stop and it is the one built for the crowd.
- From the airport. The A Line runs DEN to Union Station in thirty-seven minutes, every fifteen minutes. Airport service is priced above local fare; buy before you board. Transfer to the E or W on the same platform level.
- Buses. Routes 30 and 31 run Federal Boulevard just west of the stadium. Routes 0, 9, 10, 15, 20, and 32 plus the Flatiron Flyer all feed Union Station for an easy transfer. The old BroncosRide dedicated shuttle service remains suspended.
- From out of state. Bustang to Broncos runs a regional coach from Fort Collins, Loveland, Berthoud, and Longmont, timed to kickoff.
- Plan it in the app. RTD's Next Ride trip planner accepts "Broncos" as a destination and will return every train and bus option from wherever you are standing. Downtown rail reconstruction has shifted line assignments more than once in the last two seasons — check the day before rather than trusting a printout.
Getting to Denver
- Denver International (DEN) — 25 miles northeast of downtown, and the only meaningful option. The A Line is thirty-seven minutes to Union Station; a rideshare is forty to fifty and costs roughly ten times as much.
- Driving in from the mountains — I-70 eastbound on a Sunday afternoon in ski season is its own weather system. If your trip includes a mountain leg, do it before the game, not after.
- Colorado Springs (COS) — 70 miles south, occasionally cheaper, and a 75-minute drive that becomes two hours in I-25 traffic. Only worth it on a fare gap of real size.
Parking Strategy
- Buy a stadium permit in advance. Roughly 6,500 spaces sit on stadium property and they sell out. Game-day pricing can reach $60. One permit equals one space for one vehicle.
- Know your lot before you buy. Lot A is the $30 carpool lot — four people in the car, and no tailgating permitted. Lot C is the early tailgating lot and typically sells out within an hour of going on sale. Everything else is standard permit parking.
- Park east of the highway instead. Ball Arena and the Auraria campus hold the largest off-site inventory, about a ten-minute walk across the pedestrian bridges. The Denver Aquarium and Riverside Church lots also sell game-day parking. All of them are cheaper than the stadium and all of them empty faster afterward.
- Or do not park at all. The light rail solves this problem completely, and the post-game train is moving while the parking structures are still on their first level.
RV Tailgaters
RV and oversize parking is permit-only and limited. Lots open four and a half hours before kickoff; see the Tailgate section for how the lots actually run.
Do Not Park on Neighborhood Streets
Street parking in Sun Valley, Jefferson Park, and the West Colfax blocks around the stadium is prohibited on game days and actively enforced. Use a paid Jefferson Park lot if you want the neighborhood pre-game, and read the signs on the block you choose.
Stadium Entry
- Capacity: 76,125.
- Gates open: two hours before kickoff. United Club and Suite Level ticket holders reach the club lounges three hours out. Gate 4 offers early entry to watch pre-game warmups.
- Bag policy: one clear bag no larger than 12" x 6" x 12", or a one-gallon clear freezer bag, plus one small clutch up to 4.5" x 6.5". No backpacks. The stadium prefers you bring no bag at all.
- What you can bring: any food must be carried in a clear plastic bag. Outside beverages are not permitted. Check the stadium's A-Z Fan Guide before you pack, since the permitted list differs between football and concerts.
- Mobile tickets only. Tickets live in the Denver Broncos app. Screenshot them at your peril — the barcodes rotate.
- Cashless throughout. Every concession and merchandise stand takes cards and phones only.
- Accessibility: ADA parking permits are sold on arrival, first come, first served, in Lot L or the ADA sections of Lots D and G. They cannot be bought in advance. Accessible seating exists on every level.
- Fan conduct line: text 720-650-6464 to report a problem anonymously, in the lots or in the bowl.
Getting Around Denver
- Light rail and commuter rail cover Union Station, the stadium, Ball Arena, and the southern suburbs well. They do not usefully cover RiNo, LoHi, Five Points, or East Colfax — those are rideshare or bus.
- Walking downtown is real. Union Station to Larimer Square is twelve minutes. Union Station to LoHi over the Millennium and Highland bridges is fifteen to twenty, and it is the best walk in the city.
- Rideshare surges hard in the ninety minutes after a game and after a Ball Arena event. Walking six blocks away from the venue before you order is worth roughly half the fare.
- Under 19 rides RTD free under the Zero Fare for Youth program.
Altitude and Weather
- You are at 5,280 feet and you will notice it on the stairs to the upper deck. Drink more water than feels necessary, starting on the plane.
- Alcohol lands harder up here. This is the single most common way visitors ruin a Saturday night, and it is entirely avoidable.
- The sun is stronger than the temperature suggests. September and October afternoons in an open bowl will burn you at seventy degrees.
- September and October run 70s and dry, with cool nights. November swings between 60 and snow. December and January can deliver either a pleasant 50-degree afternoon or the conditions that produced last January's 10-7 AFC Championship. Layers, always, and check the forecast forty-eight hours out rather than a week.
Field Notes
- ✓ Weather by month — September and October are the sweet spot: dry, 70s, cool evenings. November is a coin flip. December and January are genuinely cold in an open bowl at altitude, and the wind off the Platte makes it colder than the number. Pack layers you can peel in the lot and add back at kickoff.
- ✓ Reservations are non-negotiable — Denver's best twelve tables book between thirty and sixty days out, and the two-star room and the Michelin counters release on fixed calendar days. Book flights first, then reservations the same week, then everything else.
- ✓ Cash, card, and digital all work — except where they don't — the stadium is entirely cashless, several dives on Colfax and Federal are cash-only, and RTD wants a card tapped on a validator or a pass in the MyRide app. Carry twenty dollars in cash and you will never be stuck.
- ✓ Download these apps — the Denver Broncos app for mobile tickets, RTD MyRide for rail and bus passes, and RTD Next Ride for the trip planner that accepts "Broncos" as a destination. Do it before you land, not on stadium wifi.
- ✓ Pre-game timing matters — lots open four and a half hours before kickoff, gates open two hours before, and the light rail from Union Station takes four minutes plus a queue. Leave downtown ninety minutes out and you will be comfortable; leave forty-five minutes out and you will not.
- ✓ The signature food and drink to try — pork green chile smothering something at El Taco de Mexico on Santa Fe Drive, ordered Christmas style if you cannot decide between red and green. Then a sugar steak at Bastien's and an avocado margarita at Alma Fonda Fina. That is Denver in three orders.
- ✓ Hidden gem — Run for the Roses, an underground cocktail den built into the Dairy Block a block from Union Station, with no street-level sign and a menu presented as a deck of playing cards. Most visitors walk past the stairwell entrance without knowing it's there.
- ✓ Don't skip Red Rocks — fifteen miles west, carved between two 300-foot sandstone monoliths, and open to walk for free on non-show days. Even with no concert on your weekend it is worth the morning, and the drive back drops you into Golden.
- ✓ The one must-do this trip — take the train to the game. Not because parking is impossible, but because Union Station to the stadium in four minutes, with a beer at the other end and no post-game lot crawl, is a thing almost no other NFL city can offer and Denver barely advertises.
- ✓ Above all, give the city a full day — Denver has quietly become a two-star Michelin town with a James Beard-winning bar scene, and a fly-in-Sunday-fly-out-Monday trip misses all of it. Come Friday. The football is four hours; the city is the rest of the weekend.
FAQ
Where should we go before the game?
Brooklyn's on West Colfax is three-tenths of a mile from the east gates and has been doing Broncos Sundays through four stadium names. Briar Common and Jefferson Park Pub are a ten-minute walk north if you want a neighborhood room instead.
What's the one restaurant we shouldn't miss?
Alma Fonda Fina in LoHi — Michelin-starred, twenty-eight seats, and the restaurant that convinced the country Denver was serious. Reservations drop sixty days out on OpenTable. If you strike out, Mezcaleria Alma is next door.
Where do we eat after a night game?
Yacht Club in Cole serves hot dogs and award-winning cocktails until 2 AM every night but Tuesday. Rougarou in Five Points runs to 11 PM with real Southern cooking, and Run for the Roses in the Dairy Block pours classic cocktails until midnight.
What's the best way to get to the stadium?
Take the E or W light rail from Union Station — two stops, about four minutes, $2.75 for a three-hour pass. It beats driving by a wide margin, and it beats it by more after the game.
Where should we stay to walk everywhere?
Union Station. The Crawford is built into the terminal itself and the Oxford is one block away, which puts the airport train, the stadium train, dinner, and the bars all inside a fifteen-minute radius on foot.
What if we can't get tickets?
Society Sports and Spirits in LoDo opens at noon both weekend days with wall-to-wall screens. The DNVR Bar on Colfax is where Denver's own sports media watches, and it opens at 10 AM.
What's the food we have to try beyond green chili?
Alma Fonda Fina's camote asada and Guard and Grace's wood-fired ribeye are the two dishes that explain modern Denver. Then the sugar steak at Bastien's, a 1937 invention you cannot order in another city.
What's worth doing beyond the game?
Red Rocks, fifteen miles west — walk the amphitheater free on a non-show morning. Then Larimer Square, the Denver Art Museum in Golden Triangle, and the walk from Union Station over the Millennium Bridge into LoHi.
Does the altitude actually matter?
Yes, and mostly to your Saturday night. At 5,280 feet alcohol hits harder, dehydration arrives faster, and the sun burns at temperatures that feel mild. Drink water between rounds and the rest takes care of itself.