Last Dollar Saloon

The Corner That Telluride Was Built Around

At the southeast corner of Colorado Avenue and Pine Street — the absolute geographic and spiritual centre of Telluride's historic downtown — the Last Dollar Saloon has occupied its position since 1978 with the confidence of something that knows it will outlast everything built around it. Ski resorts come and go. Restaurants pivot and rebrand. The real estate around it has changed hands at prices that would have seemed like satire to the miners who first moved through this canyon. The Last Dollar Saloon remains: same corner, same premise, same commitment to being exactly what it is without apology or aspiration.

It is a bar. Not a cocktail lounge, not a gastropub, not a craft beverage concept. A bar, in the most honourable sense of the word — a room where people gather to drink, to talk, to watch whatever is happening on the mountain outside or on the television inside, and to extend the specific pleasure of a ski day into the specific pleasure of an after-ski evening. The Last Dollar Saloon does this job with forty-plus years of accumulated expertise and the kind of institutional knowledge that only comes from watching a town change around you while refusing to change yourself.

The margaritas are the reason people come. Made with agave tequila and served in pint glasses for $5 — a price that represents an act of principled defiance against the economic reality of Telluride real estate — they are among the better margaritas in a state that takes the drink seriously. The beer list runs to more than sixty selections from around the world, with a bias toward the American craft breweries that have made Colorado one of the most beer-literate states in the country. Well drinks are $7. Fancy drinks top out at $10. The Last Dollar Saloon understands that a bar's primary obligation is to its regulars, and its regulars are not people who came to Telluride to spend $22 on a cocktail.

The Rooftop

Telluride's most democratic view is the rooftop of the Last Dollar Saloon. From this vantage point, the canyon walls that frame the town, the gondola running up toward Mountain Village, the Victorian architecture of the main street below — all of it is available to anyone with a cold drink and the good sense to climb the stairs. No reservation, no minimum spend, no dress code beyond whatever you wore on the mountain. This accessibility is the point. The best views in expensive places should not be reserved exclusively for people who can afford the expensive places.

The Last Dollar Saloon serves no food of its own, which is actually a form of service: by not attempting a kitchen, it acknowledges the superior quality of what its neighbours produce and encourages its patrons to eat well before arriving. Brown Dog Pizza next door has operated a mutually beneficial arrangement for years, with visitors bringing slices to the bar with a wink from both establishments. This is how a neighbourhood bar should work.

Hours vary seasonally, but the Last Dollar Saloon opens consistently when the mountain opens and closes when the town goes to sleep. It has been named the world's best ski dive bar by snowbrains.com, a designation that its management wears with the casual pride of an institution that never needed a title to know what it was.

Who Comes Here

Everyone. This is not a figure of speech. The Last Dollar Saloon's clientele on any given evening includes Telluride's year-round residents, the seasonal workers who staff the resort and the restaurants, the wealthy second-home owners who summer and winter here, the festival visitors who arrive for Telluride's remarkable calendar of cultural events, and the first-time visitors who walked past, saw the crowd, and understood immediately. It is one of the few places in a resort town where the social stratification that usually organises these environments dissolves entirely. The $5 margarita is the great equaliser.