When you enter Boone’s Tavern, a dozen enormous TV screens display every possible sporting event, skeeball machines clang in the corner and the Foo Fighters serenade your ears while you munch on nachos and drink a cold beer.
As well as fostering a DU spirit, Boone’s is essentially a Colorado pride bar, utilizing its many flat screen televisions to show Colorado sports teams, and its drink menu to promote Colorado brews. Focusing on the “locals”, Boone’s gives a 10 percent discount from the bill for customers who bring their DU ticket stubs for sporting events of the evening.
Located on the corner of Evans and Downing Street, the Pour Kids crew took over the Smug’s building earlier this year where they take their mantra of “state-riotic” sports bar very seriously. Pour Kids founders Rob and Meredith Lanphier, John and Laura Huddleston and Ray Perry own Boone’s and several other Denver area bars, including Handlebar on Downing Street and Noonan’s on Iliff Avenue.
Boone’s has all the usual suspects for a bar menu: burgers, French fries, wings and an array of Tex-Mex options. Ultimately, though, the NOT-Cho Normal Nachos steal the show; cheesy salty chips layered with chicken, refried beans and of course, green chili, make this a must-have dish from Boone’s menu. Delicious comfort food, these nachos would be the perfect late-night snack.
Boone’s jumbo chicken tenders, hand-cut and dressed in a secret seasoning, offer another great way to share food with your compatriots.
Boone’s offers an array of homemade sauces for their wings and for general dipping, including BBQ, teriyaki, honey garlic, CoCo-Nut Thai and an extra super spicy XXX buffalo.
As for the entrees, the barbeque is one of the best things on the menu, and for a hangover helper, Boone’s serves breakfast all day. Boone’s smokes their own barbeque out back and serves delicious homemade green chili with just about every entrée.
At its core, Boone’s is like the idyllic sports bar from a sitcom where friends gather on Saturday night to complain about their jobs and significant others, put down a few beers and watch a sports game.
An electric jukebox sits behind the tables, where you can watch multiple customers look through the entire Top Hits of the 90s collection and listen to the pleasant chatter of bar folk mixing with 25 different sports games to elicit a comfortable, familiar experience.
Boone’s obviously has its regulars: The after-work, de-stress sports crowd. The combination of mostly older adults and 90s music from artists such as Dave Matthews Band, Green Day and The Wallflowers may feel too much like you are stuck in an episode of Friends.
It may seem that students are out of place, but with a friendly staff and inviting atmosphere, feel free to expand your horizons and stop in and drink a cold Colorado beer over some barbeque wings during the next Nuggets game.
Open 11a.m.-2a.m. Monday-Friday, and 10a.m.-2a.m. Saturday and Sunday, Boone’s also has Rock ‘n Roll Bingo on Thursdays and Trivia on Tuesdays, as well as live music on Wednesday nights. The kitchen stays open until 1:30 a.m., but past 9 p.m., Boone’s becomes 21+. Be sure to stop in during a sports game to see Boone’s at its best.
