What do women want when they go out for a drink?
Cool music, attentive men, fancy cocktails?
“I like to hear,” said Christie Salter, out with girlfriends downtown on a Friday night.
Hot dancing, beautiful people, late-night drink specials?
“Half-price appetizers are always good,” said Carrie Whitley, who was out with her.
Mind you, I posed the question to the post-college set, say, 25 and older. Here’s the scenario: Where can you drink an adult beverage by yourself while you wait for your dinner companion, or, where can you and your girlfriends go and have a good time without attracting a crowd?
This is Durango, after all, a town prized by its residents for being progressive, a little bit hip and above all, fun. Surely our burg boasts three bars where women can relax and have a drink on occasion without the attendant muss and fuss of male attention.
I could think of only two.
Friends and strangers suggested their favorite restaurants, from Guido’s Favorite Foods to Seasons Rotisserie & Grill to The Kennebec to Chimayo Stone Fired Kitchen to Ken & Sue’s and on, or their favorite bar, from 6512 to El Moro Spirits and Tavern to the Irish Embassy Pub to the Balcony Bar & Grill and on.
Obviously, this was going to require research. Armed with a list of the most frequent recommendations, I set out with two intrepid girlfriends from The Durango Herald to find one more spot for ladies to lounge away an evening in their own company.
We started at Eolus Bar & Dining on a deadly dull Thursday night during spring break week. Two women were paying their bill as we arrived at 5:30 p.m.; otherwise, the bar was empty. The ever-charming co-owner James Allred promised things would pick up, probably with couples, but impatient, we left. Also, happy hour ends at 5:30 p.m., most inconvenient for anyone who works.
A few doors up, El Moro gave us three minutes to order drinks before happy hour was over at 6 p.m. It also served some of the tastiest french fries you’ll find on any local menu – skin-on, hand-cut Idaho russets, fried to the perfect crispness and served with a smashing garlic aioli. A guitar and bass duo played mellow tunes as the bar filled with solo men having a drink, and couples, families and a group of three women took up the tall tables in front.
“It’s not wild,” said Gayle Webster, a Realtor, as to why she and her friends drink at the eclectically furnished bar, complete with mason-jar chandeliers and cheese-grater sconces. “I don’t want to be stepped on anymore. I want to be able to talk to my girlfriends.”
Friendly service, affordable food and drinks and low-key bonhomie with their fellow women emerged as the top reasons ladies chose a particular place to spend their post-work hour or two.
The Office Spiritorium, that ever popular pubby spot in the Strater Hotel, offered cushy seats, a cozy atmosphere and a 4 to 6 p.m. happy hour. The downstairs tables were filled with couples, a few mixed groups and one family, but no women out together, nor at the small bar. And the french fries, while full of great potato flavor, wilted from undercooking and cold Parmesan cheese.
So we headed for the Quiet Lady Tavern in the Palace Restaurant, where no one sat at the bar and most of the mixed groups that filled the wooden tables came not so much to drink (although happy hour lasts until 7 p.m.) as to dine. Indeed, the food was good – a slightly spicy Thai shrimp dish was marvelous – helped along by its half-off appetizer price and the very long wines-by-the-glass list (25 each of reds and whites).
The trip back led us by Ken & Sue’s, where two women sat together at the empty bar, by the bar at Mutu’s Italian Kitchen, also empty, and into Seasons, where three men and a woman, owner Karen Barger, sat at the bar.
“It’s spring break and March Madness,” she said with a shrug. “Come back next week.”
It should be noted that restaurants without a separate bar space worked for one scenario but not the other. While women might sip a drink or grab an appetizer at the bar itself, without tables, they don’t gather. Unlike men, ladies aren’t likely to belly up to the bar in a group, and standing is anathema.
Friday night we returned to Eolus to find the bar full of couples, the half-price sushi fresh and the discounted house red, a Montepulciano, absolutely delicious.
We backtracked, too, to Mutu’s spacious bar with high-top tables and low, modular sofas set in a sunny room. And there we met Salter and Whitley and their friend Carolyn Ilg enjoying the 4 to 6:30 p.m. happy hour, and Durango City Councilor Christina Rinderle and her friend Carol Scobby enjoying appetizers, and tables full of women enjoying each other and their own conversation (to say nothing of the crab-stuffed mushrooms, flavor-packed, two-bite morsels in a rich cream sauce that made the whole evening worthwhile).
So there it was, the sought-after third spot, a mecca where girlfriends can eat, drink and talk – all their favorite things – at the end of the day. And wouldn’t you know it, but Mutu’s sits hard by Eno wine bar and across the street from the Rochester Hotel bar, forming a perfect triangle of ladies’ night spots on Second Avenue.
The spaces at Eno and The Rochester are tailor-made for women – comfortable tables, discreet bars, welcoming staff and a mellow atmosphere. And who better to cater to women than women, as the Rochester is owned by Diane Wildfang and Eno by Alison Dance.
“It’s much more popular with women,” Wildfang said of her informal bar in the middle of the historic hotel. “It’s intimate and friendly and you don’t have to worry about … Well, it’s not like a regular bar.”
It’s not. It doesn’t serve food other than a few light nibbles, and its drink and wine selections are fairly limited. But it has a heavenly courtyard, where starting next month, live bands play on Wednesday nights and there’s nowhere you’d rather be on any fair evening. The bartenders are amazingly accommodating, willing to scare up a particular bottle of wine or a special ingredient to customize your cocktail. And not without notice, there’s usually a dearth of men.
Wildfang sets aside Mondays and Tuesdays for local nonprofits to hold events, and on a recent Monday the place was packed with women drinking, eating and talking, of course, this time in celebration of the life of former Herald publisher Morley Ballantine, who had just been inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame.
Across the street, Eno was its usual happening scene at the end of the 6 p.m. happy hour, its tables filled primarily with small groups of women and larger mixed groups unwinding from the day and ordering off the small-plates menu as an acoustic duo played. (Two appetizers are not to be missed: the house-smoked fish with horseradish sauce and the decadent fondue.)
Without question, Eno ranked as women’s favorite place to drink, often the first word out of any friend or stranger’s mouth when asked for a recommendation. Maybe it’s the cool art on the walls. Maybe it’s the laid-back but often busy atmosphere. Maybe it’s the hip, young wait staff. Maybe it’s the inventive cocktails. The hottest “girlie” drink of the moment is a concoction of coconut vodka with elderflower liqueur, lemon and orange juices and toasted coconut.
“Ooo, that sounds good. Let’s do it, girls,” said Julie Gentry, encouraging her two girlfriends to join her.
They like Eno because it’s cozy, upscale and a little off the beaten path, away from the larger, more exuberant crowds of Main Avenue.
And you know what? Men like that, too.
“Main Avenue is like ‘Hey, hey, hey!’” said new resident Jim Dodson, sitting at the bar. “But Second Avenue is like ‘He-e-y.’”
Exactly. That’s why it’s where the girls are.
phasterok@durangoherald.com
