Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we offer our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. (We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems).
I was in a bad mood the first time I set foot inside Yacht Club. It had been a long day and I didn’t feel like fighting my way through a crowd for a basic cocktail. It didn’t help that the interior of the little building was decorated in a style I was snarkily calling “kitschy hipster-chic dive-bar modern.”
But it wasn’t that crowded on the day my wife and I sat at the bar and took a look at a menu with a long list of delicious-looking (and decidedly non-basic) cocktails.
One, in particular, stood out to me: Changes in Attitude, which was made with Scotch, Madeira wine, pineapple, coconut, lemon, buttermilk and a giant ice cube. I asked the bartender about the wine and he pointed out that there is wine in almost every cocktail at Yacht Club. He also patiently explained the other ingredients and how some of the drinks were batched in advance.
My wife and I ended up splitting three Changes in Attitude. It was that good.
The banana daiquiri is a signature drink at Yacht Club, 3701 Williams St., in Denver. (Photo credit: Gottlieb)
Over the next hour or so, I had my own change in attitude – not entirely surprising based on the Scotch – but also because Yacht Club began to grow on me. The decor now seemed more charming than overwrought; the bartender continued to be patient; the drinks were excellent and the music was good: an eclectic mix of yacht rock classics, ‘90s alt bangers and pop ballads.
The second time I visited Yacht Club was even better, and the third time, I felt right at home.
That feeling is just what Yacht Club owners Mary Allison Wright and McLain Hedges were hoping for when they opened in an old building at 3701 Williams St., next to Brasserie Brixton, in 2021.
“We want to make people feel at ease,” Hedges said. “To make them comfortable.”
The pair had a long time to think about how to do that. They first opened Yacht Club in a central area inside The Source food hall in the River North Art District in 2015. When their lease ran out four years later, they began looking for another home and finally found one in March 2020. Luckily for them, it fell through. Otherwise, the pandemic would likely have put an end to it.
Instead, Hedges and Wright joined a “forced reckoning” in the restaurant and bar industry, spending their downtime asking themselves what they missed the most about bars and what they’d like to return to. The answers aligned perfectly with the space on Williams Street.
But there was another challenge. How to create a dive-style neighborhood bar that didn’t seem “too precious” or overly manipulated,” Wright explained. Part of the solution was putting the bar staff to work actually building the bar, something that kept them employed during the pandemic-y days before opening. Eventually, Wright and Hedges decided on the following design ethos: If a yacht took a detour through a swamp and ran ashore, and you could only build a bar using what you had on board and what was available in the swamp, what would it look like?
That now includes everything from prodigious plant life to year-round Christmas lights to nautical trinkets, funky decorations, a huge wine list and a healthy dose of Jimmy Buffett.
“At the end of the day, you can’t just create a dive bar. They manifest themselves over time. But they usually start as neighborhood bars and that is where we are,” Hedges said.
Mary Allison Wright and McLain Hedges (in chairs) eating hot dogs with staff of Yacht Club, a Denver bar that opened in 2021. (Photo credit: Shawn Campbell)
The desire to be “a melting pot” for the changing neighborhoods around them – Cole, Clayton, City Park, Whittier, Skyland, Five Points – is also how they came up with their menu, he explained. You can get cocktails for around $15 a pop or a shot and a beer for $7. You can get a bottle of French champagne for $250 or a Jack-and-Coke and a hot dog for $9.
“Normally, people choose one or the other” when they start a bar, Hedges said. “But we wanted to remain accessible to the industry, the neighborhood and anyone who comes in the door.”
Did I mention the hot dogs? A regular frank is $4, a chilidog is $6 and one with cheeseball spread is $7. There’s also a caviar, crème fraiche and pickled shallot dog for $20 (the ultimate “glizzy“).
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“Meat tubes and alcohol are a tried-and-true pairing,” Wright said. Plus, since there is no kitchen, the bar staff can easily make them. “They are economical on space — and affordable.”
That combination has attracted a lot of attention as well. In 2023, Yacht Club landed on North America’s 50 Best Bars list, which is put together by bar industry pros. And earlier this year, the business was named as one of the 10 best U.S. cocktail bars by the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation’s Spirited Awards (an industry standard).
“We’re not on one of the coasts, so we push ourselves to go out and meet people … we travel and go to bar conventions. That means people are hearing about us and it gets our name out there. It’s a lot of hard work, but we want to bring people to this city,” Hedges said.
Hard work, so people like me can relax with a drink when we pull up a barstool.