It stayed until 1989, when he was able to secure a spot closer to downtown. “We’d always been trying to move downtown,” King recalls. They had tried to purchase the Golden Ox in 1985, but at that time, Capitol Hill United Neighborhood Inc. (CHUN) was not ready to accept Charlie’s. By 1988, CHUN reversed its stance and welcomed the gay bar a little closer west on Colfax and Emerson.Ĭharlie’s expanded to its Phoenix location in 1984, and locations in Chicago and more recently Las Vegas have been incorporated since. “Denver’s always been good to me,” King explains, “but once I got to Phoenix, I couldn’t quite get the motivation to go back to Denver.” King, who’s lived in Phoenix since that location opened, decided to set up the corporate office there.īut King didn’t move away from Denver because he didn’t like it, he moved away because he’s a warm-weather person. King says get a few shots of tequila in him, and he’ll talk for hours about his bar. Like how he named the bar for his then-boyfriend. The name was supposed to be the High Plains, since the original location was so close to Aurora, all his friends referred to it as being “out on the plains somewhere.”Ĭharlie’s wasn’t chosen as the official name until about a week before opening. King had noticed a lot of popular country songs had featured the name during that era, and it seemed friendly.
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It just worked out that his boyfriend happened to have that name, too. “When we broke up, Charlie didn’t know I’d bought the name,” King remembers. One of the last stipulations of their divorce, per the real Charlie, was the name of the bar would have to be changed.
In what he calls classic gay style, King told him, “I own the name Charlie’s in Colorado, but you can change your name to whatever you want.”Īnd the legacy of Charlie’s, a fine hybrid of drag queens and stag fiends, where you can line-dance beneath the sparkle of an illustrious disco-boot, is still country strong.4/21/22: Look, I understand you have regulars that you're gonna engage in conversation with, but it's ridiculous when you're neglecting other patrons. I complimented the bar, they were still standoffish.Ĭame here during happy hour, didn't even know because the bartender was insanely cold towards me. This was the bartender that worked during happy hour around 3-4pm.
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They went to the back for like 10 mins leaving the entire bar unattended, and then proceeded to talk to other people and be on their phone for another 5. They finally showed some kindness after I had to show a bit of attitude towards them for their unfriendliness. They made smart remarks after they asked about where I worked, I told them I don't wanna say where I work since I don't know them. "Oh, you can't say where you work? So top secret" said with an attitude. Are you serious? I don't appreciate the tone, I don't appreciate the service, it's not cool. Y'all need to check this bartender ASAP because he could give the wrong person this same treatment and all of this could've been a different scenario. Crazy, I saw great reviews of excellent customer service here, which put my anxiety at ease before coming.