Retrograde — Restaurant in Denver

Take the words on the front page of their website literally. For those that haven't looked, their website says, "Retrograde - HAVING A BACKWARD OR OPPOSITE DIRECTION" An example of their "opposite direction" is not letting people with a legal ID inside because if your ID is from California or you are currently in a branch of the armed forces, you will not be let in. (both have vertical IDs) After my friends and I waited for a few minutes to be seated, we were informed that they would not seat us because some of us had military IDs and some of us were from California visiting. Awesome. The only good parts of our visit was that the door host was fairly nice, even though I was not, and the ice-cream shop Retrograde is located in has decent ice-cream. And the ice-cream isn't even part of Retrograde so... After double checking Retrograde's website, it does mention that they don't accept vertical IDs but it is only mentioned in the FAQ after a paragraph of common sense that we skimmed over. I would suggest that instead of putting a single line about not excepting vertical IDs after a paragraph saying everyone needs an ID to enter the speakeasy (my friends and I stopped reading after everyone needs an ID to enter), put it at the beginning of the paragraph or, and this is the really smart idea, make it a separate point in the FAQ, as this dumb and arbitrary rule is the most important part of that whole paragraph and the rest of the paragraph most people can figure out with a bit of common sense. Honestly, if the speakeasy is filled with arbitrary and exclusive rules before you can even get into it, we most likely didn't really want to be in it anyways. We ended up walking to the horseshoe lounge (less than three minutes away) and had an amazing time. There where only two people, who were both serving the bar, but they let us move some tables together to fit our group and even offered to bring drinks out to us, even though it was getting fairly busy at the bar. The horseshoe lounge was not the speakeasy experience we promised our friends from California but we definitely had a better time singing songs from the jukebox in the horseshoe lounge and cracking jokes with the amazing staff than we would've had at any speakeasy...

I went here with a group of two friends. Our night started at a pop up Christmas bar at Union Station, but they only let you stay for so long so after a drink there we decided to go here. I had never been here before but my friends live nearby and have liked it so I was excited to go. Once we get there, my friend and I go to the bathroom to obviously use the restroom. A few minutes after we come out, Jake comes out to ask how many. We give our number of people, he leaves and my other friend decides to get ice cream while we are waiting. She is still paying when Jake comes back out, so he said he will come back in a few for us. He does and takes us to a booth. Two minutes after being seated, I was looking at their drink menu and he comes over saying we are too inebriated to be served alcohol so we can drink our water and eat ice cream but that’s it. My whole group is just shocked, we don’t say anything in that moment but waited to see if he would come back around. He did after about 10 minutes and told us there are other people waiting to come in so we had to leave. I asked what made him think we were “inebriated”, he said other staff (ice cream girl) saw us go to the bathroom together and come out looking inebriated which to me sounds like he is accusing us of doing drugs. He then says we stumbled going to our table, which we did not. Plus, we were all wearing heels so even if we did that’s not abnormal. Based on those two things he decided with his “years of experience” that this was the right choice. He didn’t say anything with a rude attitude, but what he was insinuating and his decision made no sense to me. Everyone knows girls go to the bathroom together. It also doesn’t make sense why we were even seated and let in at a table with drink menus if he intended to not serve us. Definitely disappointed with the experience because it is a cool concept but it seems staff could be better...

I love the concept here, having been to secret bars in other big cities before, I was excited to try this spot. We waited less than 5 minutes outside the freezer door and then came in to see probably 12 other people already in the bar - we got the last empty spot (due to COVID, I think there were fewer spots than normal, but still not a large bar). I ordered the Hard Ticket to Hawaii and my husband got the Bartender's choice, thinking it would be unique - no - he got an Old Fashioned. Not sure why they say bartender's choice when they just make you something off the menu. It would have been fine if the drinks tasted good. We are NOT picky drinkers by any means, with adventurous palates, but neither of us could drink more than a few sips of our cocktails. They were very gross. I can't remember the last time my husband left a drink unfinished, but we couldn't do it. It's sad because all the cocktails sounded so good and fun, based on B-movie names they have projected on the wall, but either they need to stop using cheap liquor, train their bartenders to do a better job, or need to completely overhaul the drink menu - maybe all of the above. We were asked by the bartender how the drinks were and we clearly indicated we didn't like them, but no offer or question was asked if we wanted to try something else. To me, that's just poor service and I would expect better for $14 a cocktail. In contrast, the employees of Frozen Matter were incredibly courteous - we should have chosen to get ice...