Arvada, the Patio Capital of the Denver Area!
It’s summer! Do you feel it…the pull to be outside as much as we can? In Denver Colorado where we have sun 300 days a year (our best-kept not-so-secret), it’s the perfect region for outdoor dining, drinking, games, markets, and events. The front range comes alive as restaurants and bars sweep off their patios, and set up their chairs, tables, corn hole, bocce ball, and stages. It’s the opening of patio season around Colorado’s front range; patios in Denver – here we come!
This is the time of year I find myself asking friends, “where can we go and sit outside?”. It’s time to head to Denver’s best patios…in Arvada. Yup – you read that right, for the best patios in Denver, I’m sending you to Arvada – a western suburb of the Denver metro area.
Okay – Arvada is technically not in Denver, it is its own municipality. The city is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area, and the Front Range Urban Corridor. I was surprised to find out that it is the seventh most populous city in Colorado! But honestly, the average person would just think that it’s a part of Denver as it’s hard to determine where one ends and the other begins. Plus – it’s only 7 minutes (or a 20 min RTD ride) from downtown Denver!
Why Arvada Patios are the Best in Denver
When you look at Denver as a whole, you’ll find patios spread out around the Denver Metro area, but there is one place where you can find them concentrated, in so much abundance that it evokes an entire patio culture – Olde Town Arvada. I like to call it Patio Town Arvada
Numerous – nearly every establishment in Olde Town has patio space in front of their business. And a few have patios in the back or rooftop patios! Breathe that fresh air everywhere you go!
Proximity – Olde Town is cute and small. The whole area takes up about 4 square blocks. This makes patio hopping easy because everything is so close to each other. Last summer I wrote about how you can do a really fun progressive dinner in Olde Town restaurants – well – you can also do that progressive dinner on Arvada patios – hopping from one to the other for the next course!
Pedestrian Only – The Olde Town area has been designated pedestrian-only. This is also why the restaurants and bars have so much room to spill out on the sidewalks because there are no cars or parking taking up space! Plus – the pedestrian-only area just creates such a fun atmosphere to walk around without having to worry about cars or contend with the noise.
Arvada Patios Weren’t an Accident – It was a Strategy
Olde Town Arvada has made a number of changes in the last few years that have catapulted the outdoor eating and drinking scene into epic. This is one time where COVID actually made something better. To meet the demand for more outdoor eating and drinking space during the pandemic, the streets in Olde Town were shut down to cars in June 2020.
Initially, this was just temporary. However, as COVID restrictions remained in place, the closure was extended multiple times. After hearing from many of the businesses and the community as a whole that they wanted to see the street closures remain in place., the city council voted for the pedestrian area to go semi-permanent (5-year closure) in the spring of 2021. Over a million dollars was invested at that point to make all of the patios/structures more user-friendly and permanent.
“I think Colorado has a huge patio culture! What sets Olde Town apart is the uniqueness of the buildings. Even before COVID our patios were always the place to be when it was warm. People loved sitting on a small town street with beautiful historic buildings. Now that the streets are closed to traffic, sitting outside is even better! You can enjoy music all down the streets, see the street art, and watch families play in the closed streets. ”