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My Brother's Bar
My Brother's Bar occupies a building at 15th and Platte that's been serving drinks continuously since 1873, making it the oldest operating bar in Denver. It ran under other names for most of that history — including Paul's Place — before brothers Jim and Angelo Karagas bought it in 1970 and renamed it, the story going that vendors collecting payment would be told "don't look at me, it's my brother's bar" often enough that the name just took. A framed letter behind the bar ties the building directly into Beat Generation history: it was written in 1944 by Neal Cassady from the Colorado State Reformatory, asking his old high school counselor to cover his tab at "Paul's Place" — this same corner. Cassady, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg were all known to drink there, giving a genuinely unassuming Denver bar a direct line into the circle that produced On the Road. None of that history would matter much for a cheeseburger list if the food weren't good, and the burgers are the actual draw for most people walking in now. The JCB — a jalapeño cream cheese burger — and the Ralphie Burger, built on bison instead of beef, are the two most specifically ordered items on a menu that otherwise keeps things simple: classic sandwiches, pastrami on rye, and a newer weekend brunch service built around breakfast burgers. For a Denver cheeseburger list, My Brother's Bar is the essential "oldest bar in the city, with the history to prove it" entry — a 150-year-old building with a framed Beat Generation letter on the wall, still serving a jalapeño cream cheese burger and a bison patty to a crowd that's as likely to be there for the burger as for the history.
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Bastien's Restaurant
Bastien's has stood on East Colfax Avenue since 1937, when the Bastien family bought the Moon Drive Inn that previously occupied the site. The current building — a striking, curved-roof example of Googie architecture designed by a member of the Bastien family himself — replaced the original structure in 1958 and has been the restaurant's home for well over six decades since, making it one of the more architecturally distinctive steakhouse buildings anywhere in Denver. The restaurant's signature is actually a steak, not a burger — the "Sugar Steak," rubbed with a sugar-based seasoning before searing, is what most first-time visitors are told to order. But Bastien's has run a sugar-rubbed hamburger built on the same technique for just as long, applying the restaurant's defining flavor idea to a simpler, cheaper format for regulars who want the Bastien's taste without a full steak dinner. What's most notable about Bastien's now is how long it's stayed a genuine family business: it's currently run by a fourth generation of Bastiens, with Ryan Bastien in the kitchen as head chef, and the menu has stayed close to its 1958 form rather than chasing contemporary steakhouse trends. Diners describe it as loud and unpretentious rather than formal — an old-school Denver restaurant that's never tried to be quiet or precious about its own history. For a Denver cheeseburger list, Bastien's is the essential "steakhouse burger, done the same way for generations" entry — a sugar-rubbed hamburger from a nearly 90-year-old, family-run Colfax Avenue institution, served inside one of the city's most distinctive pieces of mid-century architecture.
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