Playbooks · 2 min read · updated August 2026
A Rockies game, done properly
Cheap seats, the purple row, which bar before, which bar after, and how not to sit in traffic. The LoDo home-game playbook.
Coors Field is the reason LoDo looks the way it does, and eighty-one times a year it turns the neighborhood into a small festival for about six hours. Here is how locals do it.
Tickets
Unless it is Opening Day or a big weekend, buy on the Rockies' own site the day of. The team's recent seasons have been bad (43–119 in 2025, the worst record in the modern era) and the crowds show it, which means the best deal in Major League Baseball is an upper-deck seat here on a Tuesday. Sit on the third-base side of the upper deck for the Front Range at sunset. The purple row, row 20 of the upper deck, marks exactly 5,280 feet above sea level. If you are under thirty or feel it, the Rooftop in right field is a standing-room bar deck with its own ticket.
Before
Everyone drinks on Blake Street between 19th and 22nd, and everyone is right to; it is a genuine block party. The specific choices, close to far:
- Across from the gates: Jackson's for the rooftop deck looking at the ballpark, Tap Fourteen upstairs at 1920 Blake for seventy Colorado taps, Belles & Boots if you want a country bar.
- One block: Denver ChopHouse in the old railroad building for a sit-down steak, Tom's Watch Bar and the food hall at McGregor Square with the plaza screen.
- Two blocks and calmer: Wynkoop Brewing (go straight upstairs to the pool hall), the Dairy Block for Milk Market, Kachina, Blanchard Family Wines or a happy-hour cocktail at Poka Lola.
- Four blocks and quiet: Great Divide at 22nd and Arapahoe, Jagged Mountain on 20th, Marco's Coal-Fired for the best pizza near the park.
Eat before you go in; the ballpark food is fine and the beer is what it is.
Getting there
Walk from Union Station (ten minutes up Wynkoop or Wazee), take the A Line or the FreeRide to the station and walk, or ride a bike and lock it at the racks along Blake. If you drive, park a mile out and walk; the lots next to the park charge $40 and up and take an hour to empty afterward.
After
The crowd flips at about the seventh inning. If you want the party, Blake Street keeps going until 2am. If you want a drink and a conversation: Seven Grand on the Dairy Block for whiskey, Herb's Hideout or Star Bar up Larimer for live music or karaoke in a real dive, Tokio or Da Sauce a block west of the park for ramen or Chicago pizza after midnight, or the walk over the bridges to My Brother's Bar.
The next morning
Snooze or The Original for a real breakfast, or, if you woke up early enough, the 6:30am Mysore room at Ashtanga Yoga Denver, ten minutes up Larimer, which is a very different way to start a game day.