The Speakeasy (Imperial Hotel basement)

The story

In 1880, Prussian immigrant and 1859 Gold Rush miner George Zweck broke ground on 301 Main Street. When it opened in 1881 as the Zweck Hotel, downtown Longmont had no municipal water grid, so river water was hauled up from the nearby St. Vrain River to manually fill three massive brick cisterns. Zweck went broke after losing $90,000 worth of cattle in a winter blizzard, selling the building in 1894 to the Allen family, who renamed it the Imperial Hotel. But beneath the street, something stranger was taking shape: early construction featured open subterranean vaults with iron railings along Main Street. When the city eventually paved over those grates, it sealed off a dark, brick-and-stone underground sidewalk tunnel along the basement perimeter.

You didn't hear it from us, but old-timers in town will tell you those covered sidewalk tunnels connected multiple buildings along Main Street, serving as underground conduits for moving coal and—during Prohibition—casks of illicit liquor. By 1907, photos show a sign near the basement stairs advertising 'Cigars & Billiards.' After the hotel permanently shuttered its guest rooms in 1971, the cellar cycled through dive bars (including a 20-year run as a bar named Cheers) before founder Sarah Carrillo took over the subterranean lease in 2012. She stripped back decades of interior walling to expose the original 1880s stonework and opened The Speakeasy.

You aren't drinking in a suburban strip-mall mock-up with stick-on wallpaper; you're standing inside a genuine 19th-century cellar vault. Low ceilings, original stone walls, and dimly lit alcoves anchor the room, backed by local lore that insists a century of bootleggers, brothel rumors, and restless spirits still linger in the dark corners.