Arabian Bar

It’s closed! After all the great, descriptive reviews we headed over Ib anticipation. Sadly, it’s boarded up!

From the outside, the Arabian looks like an abandoned bar that has possibly been converted into a heroin den. Upon retrospect, I assume that there is a good reason for this.
Once you ascertain that this place is a functioning bar and get up the nerve to open the door, the first thing you will probably notice is the odd array of patrons. Let me describe a scene from a Saturday night in late April 2012:
There are a couple of middle aged women rocking mullets and drinking Coors at the bar. Some very intoxicated 20 somethings dance to 70s soul on the jukebox, while a few biker dudes look on with interest. A homeless man sways from table to table, and a few hippie guys play pool.
Obviously, this is not your typical Highlands «scene».
The bartender is terse, yet friendly. She zips around the bar wildly, obviously with help from some serious uppers. After her shift, she thrusts her leg onto the bar, asks a man to help her put on her leather chaps, and literally takes off running into the night.
The atmosphere– a few booths with peeling plastic covers, a single pool table, no windows. The bathroom is bad, but I’ve seen much worse.
$ 10 for 5 Coors. $ 5 house whiskey.
Possibly the only non-​pretentious bar in the Highlands. Congrats Arabian!

We had a fabulous dinner at Root Down and we already had a couple of adult beverages in our happy bellies. We walked over to the Highland Tavern but when we went in we were confronted by a wave of heat and humidity that made us both stop in our tracks. Blech! Everyone turned to stare just in case we were there to be seen. We weren’t. There was another bar across the street so we walked right back out.
We left all of the crotch rockets parked in front of the Highland Tavern to walk over to the Arabian Bar. The bar’s name is so faded that you really couldn’t read it from very far away. It looked like a dive bar and I dragged my reluctant friend in. When we walked in the bartender smiled and no one gave us a single look.
We found two unstable seats at the bar and ordered our drinks. The bartender was very nice and the music was good. We sang to some Eagles songs and enjoyed the company. It seemed like a little family, like everyone knew each person in the bar. We felt very welcome even though we’d never been there before.
I would definitely hit up the Arabian Bar again.

A great neighborhood bar. Last night the cops arrested and towed some shady characters out front of my house.
It’s a nice place. The staff and patrons are friendly.
The rum cokes are a little expensive. but at least the douche bag yuppie idiots stay at the highland tavern where they belong.
I enjoy the 4 – 8 cop cars that arrive on any given night to help the patrons when exiting.

Imagine the following scenario:
You wander into the Arabian toward the end of a blurry evening. There is no longer a sign out front, but you can almost make out the name of the bar where it was painted on the front of the building many years ago. There are bars in the windows. You offer a cheery «Hello!» to the tattooed biker type smoking in the shadows near the entrance. He doesn’t return your greeting.
Once inside you choose between Budweiser, Coors and Miller, unsure if there are other options. You sit in an orange booth that reminds you of what the booths at McDonald’s must have been like in the 70s, particularly if you were wont to spend time at McDonald’s while under the influence of hallucinogens. Over the course of a single hour you will be offered two different kinds of drugs. A man will show you, with endearing enthusiasm, that his pants pocket is filled with white powder and you will wonder what happened to the baggy. A woman with a mullet will tell you that you are the worst pool player she’s ever seen. A bartender who could be anywhere from 50 to 100 years old will whisper overly specific instructions regarding daylight savings time and extract from you a solemn promise that you will heed her advice.
As you leave, certain that everyone in the bar is now your friend, you will be warned that if you don’t hurry to your car you might get stabbed by one of the patrons.
After imagining this scenario you might react in one of two ways:
1. Brow furrowed, nose wrinkled, arms crossed. You say «ew» and hit the back button on your browser.
2. With a racing heart and a mischievous gleam in your eye you say «I want to go there.»
If your response was anything like #2 I kind of think we should be friends.

My friends and I were across the street at the Highland Tavern, but alas, it felt too sterile for us. So we wandered across the street to the Arabian. The older I get, the more I seek out bars like this.
There are no windows in this place. Literally.
The dilapidated orange booths provide a nice touch, as does the limited selection of chocolate candy bars next to the cash register from the 1960’s.
The liquor selection is shallow but effective. The beer only comes in a bottle (and probably cans as well). And on this particular evening, the Arabian billiards team was engaged in an intense practice session, all strapped with personalized tee-​shirts and jacket.
At the Arabian, the clientele is composed of genuine folk. There is no scene to be had here. Just fellow society members who want to unwind from the stress of the day, drink a beer or a shot, and have some conversation.
I hate to call it a dive bar, but at the end of the day, that’s what 9.9 out of 10 would classify it as.
I would prefer to call it an onion bar. Peel back the layers and you will discover its beauty. No need to make this a destination for the evening, but if you’re in the neighborhood, or more specifically, if you’re at the HIghland Tavern and find yourself bored, it’s definitely worth swinging through.

There are some bars that you go to just to drink. And there are some bars that you should never walk into without a few drinks already under your belt. The Arabian is both.
My neighbors brought me here the first time, after a long, ugly night. Parts of that night are still hazy, and that’s likely a good thing. I’m not sure what the correct adjective is after «dive», but this is about two levels of dirty beyond traditional dive. The bar only accepts cash. The bartenders are not nice, and are missing teeth. A lot of teeth. Three separate men at the bar offered to sell me a wide variety of illegal pharmaceuticals. Several other men asked me to dance (note there is a not a dance floor). And really, all of those things combine to make an authentic, fabulous, bizarre kinda place. If Quentin Tarintino was going to film a scene in Denver, it would be here. Love it.

In John’s random north Denver wanderings he happened upon this completely unassuming structure that looks more like a small haunted house than a bar. It sits calmly on the corner a slightly grey-​black building with the name painted on the door waiting for the true drunkards, the regulars to step into its inky embrace. I say inky because once inside you are pulled into a true working class bar ambiance where they don’t have to pull the shades on the windows to shut out the day because there are no windows. There is only the soft humming glow of old neon beer signs. It is the sort of place that many people might find daunting, perhaps unwelcoming. When the door closes behind you, you are faced with a decision: turn around and walk out, or accept the mariachi crooning loudly from the juke, and step up to the bar.
We chose the latter. At the bar we ordered tall jack and cokes, and shook hands with the bartender and owner– John. We made a bit of small talk asking him if it was his bar, and he asked what we did, and where we lived though he could have just as easily served our drinks and gone about his business. We soaked in the atmosphere, had another drink, and met Gil, another regular who was «just tryin to make it work». As we got up to leave, we said goodbye to John who took the time to come down and shake our hands and let us know that he thought we were «good people», and to come back any time.
The Arabian is a bar for regulars, where everyone knows everyone in one way or another. It is a bar with a limited amount of drink options: no draft beers, no lychee martinis, two types of tequila. Yet they have a Thanksgiving dinner for all comers. We walked in strangers in a strange land, but will absolutely return feeling like prodigal members of the family.