Union Station

A station first opened here on June 1, 1881; the current Beaux-Arts building went up in 1914; and the whole thing was reborn in July 2014 after a $54 million restoration that turned the Great Hall into the closest thing Denver has to a public living room. You can sit on the leather sofas with a laptop or a beer from Terminal Bar without buying a ticket. Upstairs is the Crawford Hotel; behind it is the open-air train shed for the A Line to the airport (about 37 minutes) and Amtrak's California Zephyr, and beneath that a 22-gate bus concourse. The Cooper Lounge on the mezzanine is the dress-up cocktail room. In 2026 the plaza hosts Urban Markets on select weekends and free live music on the Terminal Bar patio on summer Fridays, 5 to 8pm. Note: there is no farmers market here in 2026; the growers-only Saturday market was replaced by an arts-and-crafts urban market.

Why go. It is the one place in LoDo that works equally well at 7am and 11pm, for a train, a drink or a place to sit.

Ride the A Line from the airport and walk out the front doors onto Wynkoop; the Great Hall sofas fill up by late afternoon on weekends, so come early or go upstairs to the Cooper Lounge for a seat.