Occidental — Restaurant in Denver

Okay, this is gonna be long, but I promise it's worth it. This is the story of how I ended up at Occidental in an enormous medieval evening gown and it was the best night of my life. I got married in May, and it was a bit of a seat-of-the-pants deal. We wed in the park near our house, then took off to Denver for a mini-honeymoon (hereafter referred to as a "minimoon"). I had scheduled us to check in at our hotel at 6pm, and a dinner reservation for 8. Well, apparently I was TOO cautious with time on this evening, because we checked in at 5:30pm and had HOURS to wait before our dinner reservation, so we wandered around the gorgeous historic neighborhood and down toward the restaurant, still wearing our wedding garb - him in a formal vest and tie, me in about nine miles of velvet and satin that wouldn't have looked out of place at a Renaissance Fair. "We could stop somewhere and just have a drink," I suggested. My new husband pointed across the street at the Occidental. "How about there? That looks like a bar." "It looks like a DIVE," I said. "But y'know what? Yeah, I kind of want to walk into a dive bar dressed like this. Let's do it." And the Occidental is kind of a dive, in all the best ways. It's dark, and the music's loud, and the chairs are comfy. We were attended by a guy named Jesse, who must have been a golden retriever in a past life, because he was the most happy, charming, instantly magnetic person I've ever encountered. "What's the finery about?" he asked, and when we confessed the wedding, he seemed overjoyed and stayed to talk about our plans for the evening. I had a Jameson and Coke, we ate some cheese curds (ridiculously delicious), and then we headed across the street to the LoHi Steakbar for dinner. But the story's not over. We were a few minutes into appetizers at dinner when our waitress stopped by our table. She said, "Jesse across the street says you guys just got married, and that your drink is a Jameson and Coke," and put down a truly gigantic Jameson and Coke. Blindsided by the sweet gesture, I tried to grin and cry at the same time, with mushy results. All evening the waitstaff kept popping by, a new face every ten minutes saying, "Hey, I just heard, congratulations! You guys look so happy!" I've never in my life seen such kindness, such openhearted shared joy and excitement, from perfect strangers. So thank you, Jesse. Thank you, Occidental. Thank you for making the most perfect day of my life even...

This place was pretty great. It had an awesome atmosphere except it was more of a “dine in” experience instead of the dive bar feel I was expecting.

They had good customer service and food.

However, I would not visit this venue if you want to have a true bar experience.

I appreciate they had good covid protocols but the group I went with immediately wanted to leave bc that was not the experience we were looking for.

We were asked to sit in a space we didn’t like and quite frankly didn’t even ask for. It was a bummer we couldn’t socialize with other customers. We did request to get relocated which was handled immediately

The Staff was great…. But I’m sure the owners don’t realize how much of a drag it was for their customers if they realized how to the experience was as a new customer… not what anyone was looking for with my group but this place had great potential. Just tough wanting to go to a bar looking for that experience and truly getting a dine in type service. This place should reconsider how they promote their venue especially since the experience was 💯 not what anyone I attended...

I like the bar, when we went we had a great server too. However, a few things stuck out that that I wanted to share.

First the cocktails did not have a price on them and since the server was so knowledgeable we didn’t think to check and weigh the options with their prices. They weren’t terribly priced, but more than what a non-downtown dive bar should be charging. We were charged $12 per drink.

Second on the bill there was a 5% service fee. Which is usually fine since I would just tip 15% to make up for the difference, but if you don’t notice it, that could be extra out of your pocket.

The last thing is the server offered us shots in the beginning which he worded as “are you guys up for some shots? How about green tea,” which we agreed. I fully expected to pay for them, but the ladies in our group were under the assumption that any time shots has been offered like that they were on the house.

Just something to...