My Mile-High adventure ended with a bang. A Grizzly Rose Bang!
I escaped the press trip (well, it came to a civilized end) and spent the evening with friends who find themselves living and loving in Denver. Adhering to my new restaurant practice (if I don’t know what something is, I order it without explanation; barring that option, I order whatever I’ve never had before) and with a nod to my desperation default-order strategy, I had a BLT pizza (a bit of white sauce, crispy bacon, slices of fresh tomato on a thin, yeasty crust, and a handful or two of mixed green salad thrown on top—not bad at all) at The Oven following a scintillating talk (“Mixed Taste”) at The Lab at Belmar—where brothers Jake Adam York and Joe York entertainingly covered Sun Ra and Southern Family Restaurants, respectively.
My friends were not only sympathetic to my interest in the Grizzly Rose Saloon & Dance Emporium, they go there for two-step lessons on Sunday afternoons. So to the country bar off the highway we went!
Was it everything I thought it would be? Internets, it was more. Much, much more. Let me break it down:
1. Thursday is Ladies Night. Ladies Night! At the Grizzly Rose this doesn’t just mean the ladies, like myself, get in free, it means we also get free draft beer. (Finally, sexism pays off!)
2. I can only imagine that because of this generous policy, there were two (as if one wouldn’t have been delightful enough) bachelorette parties happening. Sadly, my vision of a bride dance-off never happened. (As a horrible consolation prize, however, I overheard one bachelorette friend ask another: “Does my mouth look ready to put a cock in?” To which the friend answered: “Yeah, it’s porn shiny!”)
3. Country dancing is super fun to watch. The house band played, the center of the dance floor was filled with line dancers, the two-steppers worked their stuff along the sides, expertly making their way around the perimeter a couple times each song. (One question remains: how do the line dancers know which dance to do? Can anyone help me with this one? Does one of them just start one and they all follow? Does each and every country song have a designated line dance attached to it? Help!)
4. Grizzly Rose is a hang out—from what I could tell—for all ages (well, all ages over 21). There were college kids there, older couples who clearly like breaking out their dance moves, couples of all ages and dance abilities on dates, and there were even some groups that clearly included parents and their pretty-much-grown kids.
Joe York presented snippets from documentaries he’s made with the Southern Foodways Alliance during his talk. Bits about Willie Mae’s Scotch House in New Orleans and Hot Chicken in Nashville. The unique deserves to be treasured, but more importantly it deserves to be experienced. There aren’t too many Grizzly Rose’s out there—at least not outside of the region. Things like that make a city worth traveling to instead of through. Mark my words: I’m going back someday.
