Playbooks · 2 min read · updated August 2026
One good day in LoDo
If you have a single day and no plan, do this. Coffee to last call, all on foot, in the order the neighborhood wants you to take it.
This is the walk we give people who ask. It assumes you are starting at Union Station, because everyone does, and that it is not January.
8am. Coffee and something baked at Little Owl on Blake, or LoDough in the Dairy Block alley if it is a weekend, or Pigtrain inside the station if you cannot be bothered to go outside. Sit in the Great Hall for ten minutes regardless.
9am. Walk out the back of the station, over the Millennium Bridge, across Commons Park to the top of the hill for the skyline, down to Confluence Park where the city started, and over the Highland Bridge to Platte Street. Forty minutes, flat, the best walk in Denver.
10:30am. REI in the old tramway powerhouse, if only for the building; a bike from the rental desk if you want to ride the Cherry Creek Trail out and back.
Noon. Lunch at My Brother's Bar (the JCB burger, the patio, no sign outside), or Denver Beer Co if you would rather sit in a beer garden. Ice cream from the giant milk can at Little Man on the way back over the bridge.
2pm. The Museum of Contemporary Art at 15th and Delgany, two hours, then a drink on its roof. If you have children, swap in the Downtown Children's Playground below it, or the Children's Museum across the river.
4:30pm. Happy hour. Poka Lola or Blanchard Family Wines on the Dairy Block, Jax for oysters at the bar, or the Cruise Room at the Oxford the moment it opens at 4, which is the only time you will get a seat without waiting.
6pm. If the Rockies are home, go; upper deck, third-base side, purple row if you can. If not, walk Larimer Square at dusk when the lights come on, and eat at Rioja, Osteria Marco, or Tavernetta back at the station (book any of them). Comedy Works at 7:30 if you planned ahead.
10pm. Seven Grand for whiskey, Corridor 44 for Champagne, Herb's Hideout for free jazz in a real bar, or the Cooper Lounge upstairs at the station for the last drink, looking down at where you started.
The next morning, if you are the type: the 6:30am Mysore room at Ashtanga Yoga Denver, ten minutes up Larimer, and then Snooze or Woodie Fisher for breakfast in an 1881 firehouse.