LoDo is short for Lower Downtown, and it is the reason Denver still has a nineteenth-century city centre to walk around in. It is twenty-five square blocks of red-brick warehouses that were very nearly demolished, and it is now the densest concentration of restaurants, bars and nightlife in the city. It also contains Denver’s train station, its baseball stadium and its oldest commercial block.

This guide covers what is in LoDo, where to eat and drink, and the history that explains why the neighbourhood looks the way it does. Everything named here has been checked as open and operating. For what is busy tonight rather than in general, ask the Denver neighbors who are out in LoDo right now.

How LoDo survived

The short version is that LoDo nearly did not. Roughly twenty percent of Lower Downtown’s buildings were demolished under Denver Urban Renewal Authority policies during the 1960s and 1970s, and the district was widely regarded as skid row rather than as an asset.

What stopped it was a zoning ordinance. In March 1988 Denver City Council created the Lower Downtown Historic District, explicitly to encourage historic preservation and to restore economic and social vitality to the city’s founding neighbourhood while it still had architecture worth saving. That designation protected the 127 contributing historic structures that were still standing.

The turnaround was fast. By the time Coors Field opened on the edge of the district in 1995, LoDo held 55 restaurants and clubs, 30 art galleries and 650 residences. Today its twenty-five square blocks hold close to 100 restaurants, clubs, galleries and shops, and the district is cited nationally as a model of urban reinvestment. When you are walking past the brick warehouses, that is what you are looking at: buildings that were saved deliberately and recently, not by accident.

Denver Union Station

Denver Union Station is LoDo’s anchor and one of the great public rooms of the American West. It opened on 1 June 1881, cost $525,000 and was then the tallest building in the West, standing in what was a dusty field near the South Platte. An electrical fire that began with a chandelier in the ladies’ room destroyed much of the central section, prompting a larger depot in 1894, and that centre was replaced again in 1914 by the Great Hall you walk into now.

After decades of decline, a revitalisation effort begun in 2001 led to a $54 million renovation by the architecture firm SOM and a grand reopening in 2014, timed to the Great Hall’s centenary. The Beaux-Arts architecture survived, including restored chandeliers and marble floors, and the project added the 112-room Crawford Hotel, named for the preservationist Dana Crawford. The hall is free to walk into and sit in, and doing so costs nothing and is one of the better half-hours available downtown.

Restaurants and bars in LoDo

Union Station itself

The station is a dining destination as much as a transit hub, which is why “Union Station restaurants” is one of the most-searched phrases in the neighbourhood. Inside the Great Hall, Terminal Bar occupies the restored ticketing office and pours around thirty Colorado craft beers on tap, with the bar built into the original ticket windows, blue leather booths, a wood and brass counter, and a walk-up window so you can carry a drink into the hall. It opens Monday to Wednesday 11am to 11pm, Thursday to Saturday 11am to midnight, and Sunday 11am to 11pm.

Wynkoop Brewing Company

Wynkoop Brewing Company at 1634 18th Street is the brewpub many Coloradans treat as the starting point of the state’s modern beer scene. It occupies a historic warehouse, has a pool hall upstairs, and pours a wide rotating range rather than chasing one style. Hours are 11am to midnight Monday to Thursday, 11am to 1am Friday and Saturday, and 11am to midnight Sunday, which makes it one of the genuinely late options in the district.

The Dairy Block and Denver Milk Market

The Dairy Block is a micro-district built around Denver’s first fully activated alleyway, a partly covered passage running from 18th to 19th between Blake and Wazee. Bronze-cast butter churns are set into the walls in tribute to the Windsor Farms Dairy that occupied the site in the 1920s, and the Maven Hotel extends overhead, keeping the alley usable in rain and snow. The Denver Milk Market is its centrepiece: eleven all-local venues from chef Frank Bonanno, from a house-made pasta bar to a tuna poke stand, with a bar in the middle. It recently completed a refresh adding two new concepts, a game room and a large mural.

Larimer Square

Larimer Square sits on the edge of LoDo and predates the district’s designation by more than a century. The block was laid out by William E. Larimer in 1858, it is Denver’s oldest surviving commercial district, and it became the city’s first designated historic district in 1971, seventeen years before the wider LoDo ordinance. Rioja has been there since November 2004 under chef Jennifer Jasinski and partner Beth Gruitch, serving seasonal Mediterranean food. Be aware that the block’s restaurant roster has turned over noticeably in recent years, so confirm a specific restaurant is still trading before planning an evening around it.

LoDo nightlife

LoDo is Denver’s nightlife district, and that is worth understanding before you plan an evening there, because it cuts both ways. The concentration of bars and clubs across twenty-five walkable blocks means you can move between very different rooms on foot, which is rare in a Western city. It also means that on summer weekends and on nights when the Rockies are playing at Coors Field, the streets near the ballpark are genuinely crowded and the character of the district shifts towards a younger, louder crowd.

The practical local approach is to pick your end of LoDo. The Union Station end is calmer, more food-and-cocktail led, and works for a conversation. The blocks nearer Coors Field are where the volume is. Weeknights across the whole district are a completely different and much quieter experience. Our Denver bars guide covers rooftops and the wider city, and breweries in Denver covers the beer end in detail.

Beyond eating and drinking

LoDo repays simply walking it. The red-brick warehouse architecture is the whole point of the historic district, and the contrast between the 1880s frontages and the newer infill tells the preservation story more clearly than any plaque. Coors Field sits on the district’s edge and is worth walking past even outside baseball season. Union Station’s Great Hall is free to sit in. The Dairy Block alley is a short detour with the butter churns set into the walls.

LoDo is also the most connected part of Denver. Union Station is the region’s transit hub, the rebuilt 16th Street corridor runs from here towards Broadway, and the Highland Bridge carries you over I-25 into LoHi in about ten minutes on foot. That makes LoDo the natural base for a first visit. Our guides to downtown Denver, LoHi and things to do in Denver cover where to go next.

Practical notes

LoDo is walkable end to end and is one of the few parts of Denver where parking is more trouble than it is worth, particularly on game nights. Union Station makes arriving by transit straightforward, including from the airport.

Book ahead at weekends. Check the Rockies schedule before choosing a night if crowds matter to you either way, since a home game transforms the blocks around the ballpark. And the altitude caveat applies here more than anywhere in Denver, because LoDo is where visitors are most likely to spend an evening drinking on their first day in the city: a mile above sea level, alcohol lands harder and dehydration arrives faster than most people expect.

Frequently asked questions about LoDo, Denver

What does LoDo stand for?

Lower Downtown. It is Denver’s founding neighbourhood and covers roughly twenty-five square blocks of historic red-brick warehouse architecture at the north-west end of downtown, anchored by Union Station and bordered by Coors Field.

Why is LoDo historic?

Around twenty percent of Lower Downtown’s buildings were demolished under Denver Urban Renewal Authority policies in the 1960s and 1970s. In March 1988 Denver City Council passed a zoning ordinance creating the Lower Downtown Historic District to halt that and encourage preservation, protecting the 127 contributing historic structures still standing. The district is now cited nationally as a model of urban reinvestment.

Where should I eat and drink in LoDo?

Terminal Bar inside Union Station pours about thirty Colorado beers in the restored ticketing office. Wynkoop Brewing at 1634 18th Street is the historic brewpub with late hours and a pool hall upstairs. The Denver Milk Market at the Dairy Block holds eleven local concepts from chef Frank Bonanno. Larimer Square offers sit-down dining, anchored by Rioja, open since November 2004.

How did LoDo change after Coors Field opened?

By the time Coors Field opened on the edge of the district in 1995, LoDo had already revitalised, holding 55 restaurants and clubs, 30 art galleries and 650 residences. Today the district contains close to 100 restaurants, clubs, galleries and shops.

Is Larimer Square part of LoDo?

It sits on the edge of LoDo and is older than the district designation. The block was laid out by William E. Larimer in 1858 and became Denver’s first designated historic district in 1971, seventeen years before the 1988 LoDo ordinance.

Is LoDo a good place to stay in Denver?

For a first visit, yes. It is walkable, it holds the highest concentration of restaurants and bars in the city, Union Station connects it to regional transit and the airport, the rebuilt 16th Street corridor runs from it, and the Highland Bridge reaches LoHi on foot in about ten minutes. The trade-off is noise near Coors Field on game nights and at weekends.