In the ’70s, the bar was renamed the R & R Lounge. Then we snagged some cocktails and Esteban showed us the many accolades that the R & R has earned over the years, including the pages in Denver's Best Dive Bars: Drinking and Diving in the Mile-High City (penned by former Westword bar writer Drew Bixby), a Westword award for Best Gay Bar 2016, and an OutFront award for "Best Place to Sit in Part of Denver's Queer History" in 2017.īut there's much more history to the bar that rightfully claims to be "Denver's oldest gay bar." The location has been a bar since the 1950s, when it was known as the Coral Lounge and was considered a "mixed" bar, which is basically what people called an incognito gay bar back then. Our eyes were drawn to the long list of the month's birthdays on one wall, and Esteban brought us an old 2013 Ace Hardware Calendar so we could pencil in our birthdays, to be added to the wall during the proper upcoming month. The small, welcoming crowd that night was overseen by bartender Esteban, who immediately greeted us. I'd seen the gleaming neon sign, complete with a martini glass (very old Denver, very Colfax, just how I like it) many times, but I'd never been inside until a friend invited me for a drink on a recent weekend night. At 4958 East Colfax, it also just happens to be within walking distance of my house in the Mayfair/Hale neighborhood. The R & R Lounge has been welcoming one and all as an East Colfax neighborhood gay bar since before most Denverites knew that there were gay bars in their midst.