The 1Up Arcade Bar - Colfax

The story

When owner Jourdan Adler expanded his arcade bar concept from downtown to East Colfax in 2012, he initially took over Pete's Monkey Bar and dubbed it 'The 2Up.' A year later, he annexed the adult bookstore next door—Kitty's East—and merged the two spaces into the sprawling neon flagship now known as The 1Up Colfax. Following the closure of the original LoDo location in mid-2026 after a 15-year run, the Colfax venue stands as Denver's main inner-city sanctuary for analog cabinet culture.

Inside, the floor holds over 90 classic arcade cabinets, roughly 30 pinball tables, and six skee-ball lanes beneath walls wrapped in retro memorabilia and custom murals. Crucially, 1Up sidesteps modern card-swipe gimmicks in favor of real metal money: change machines convert your cash to quarters or tokens. Classic cabinets and skee-ball run on single quarters ($0.25) per play, while modern pinball tables run four quarters ($1.00).

Beyond casual drinking and joystick mashing, Colfax serves as ground zero for Colorado's competitive pinball subculture, regularly hosting IFPA-sanctioned tournaments and recurring leagues like the Colfax Queens (for women and non-binary players) and Pingolf. And because Colfax strictly enforces a 21-and-over policy at all hours—unlike suburban locations—the energy comes accompanied by 12 draft taps, cocktails, and 40 oz cans in brown paper bags rather than children's birthday parties.