historic hotel · $$$ · since 1891
The Oxford Hotel
Denver's oldest working hotel, open since 1891, Art Deco bar attached
OxfordHotelDenver — Trueshow111, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Oxford opened in 1891, a block and a half from the train station, and has never stopped operating, which makes it the oldest hotel in Denver. Frank Edbrooke designed it. The Art Deco redo came in the 1930s, and that is when the Cruise Room appeared — a narrow, red-lit martini bar modeled on a lounge from the Queen Mary that poured its first drink the day after Prohibition ended. Urban Farmer handles steaks off the lobby, and there is a spa and a members' club upstairs. Rooms are small by modern standards, and that is rather the point.
Why go. The Cruise Room alone justifies the night, and it is twenty steps from the elevator.
The Cruise Room seats maybe forty people — go on a weeknight before seven and take a booth along the wall.
A short walk from The Oxford Hotel
Amante Coffee at the Oxford
$A Boulder coffee outfit's LoDo cafe in the Oxford Hotel annex.
LoDo · 1612 17th Street
The Cruise Room
$$$An Art Deco martini bar open since the day after Prohibition ended.
LoDo · 1600 17th Street (Oxford Hotel)
Urban Farmer
$$$$Farm-sourced steakhouse attached to the Oxford Hotel, with brunch and a butcher's bent.
LoDo · 1659 Wazee Street
Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar
$$$LoDo's oyster bar since 1996, still packed and still shucking at happy hour.
LoDo · 1539 17th Street
Venice Ristorante & Wine Bar
$$$Old-school Venetian dining and a very deep wine cellar opposite Union Station.
LoDo · 1700 Wynkoop Street
Yampa Sandwich Co.
$Steamboat-born sandwich counter at 16th and Wazee, open early to late.
LoDo · 1617 Wazee St