2 westword.com WESTWORD JUNE 25-JULY 1, 2026 | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | W ® 4 LORDS OF THE BILLBOARDS Why do injury lawyers rule the Denver sky? BY SAGE KELLEY 8 DATING GAME Ryan Warner has designs on some of Denver’s buildings. BY TEAGUE BOHLEN 11 A GLASS ACT Drink your vegetables: Savory cocktails are having a moment. BY TROY BOWEN 13 GOING GLOBAL Before heading to Vietnam, Old Man Saxon refl ects on his 15-year hip-hop career. BY CLEO MIRZA 8 Culture 11 Cafe 13 Music CONCERTS/CLUBS ................................... 14 19 Marijuana CANNABIS CALENDAR ............................ 19 HIGH NOTES ............................................. XX VOLUME 49 NUMBER 43 JUNE 25-JULY 1, 2026 E D I T O R I A L Editor Patricia Calhoun News Editor Thomas Mitchell Food and Drink Editor Antony Bruno Music Editor Emily Ferguson Culture Editor Kristen Fiore Social Media Editor Katrina Leibee Staff Writers Sage Kelley, Hannah Metzger Senior Contributors Brendan Joel Kelley, Alan Prendergast, Michael Roberts Contributors Gil Asakawa, Teague Bohlen, Justin Criado, Audrey Ferrer, Nick Hutchinson, Karl Christian Krumpholz, Skyler McKinley, Abigail Nueve, Ryan Pachmayer, Kristin Pazulski, Adam Perry, Evan Semón, Amber Taufen, Toni Tresca, Kastle Waserman Music Listings Matthew Jones Cover Designer Monika Swiderski Editorial Intern July Ramirez P R O D U C T I O N Production Manager Michael Wilson Assistant Production Manager Erin Kirk Graphic Designers Caleigh Gearheart, Tori O’Connor C R E A T I V E S E R V I C E S Senior Graphic Designer Allie Seidel A D V E R T I S I N G Senior Multimedia Account Executives Amy Camera, Aaron Lembke Multimedia Account Executives Remy Diamond, Rachel Gilmore, Keith Gordon, Trey Konsella, Kirby Quick, Dalton Wilson, Allison Wissink Operations Manager Carver Hodgkiss Digital Sales Coordinator Anne-Grace Hartman Director of Digital Sales Alan Heath C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Ty Koepke B U S I N E S S Director of Business and Operations Russell Breiter Financial Accountant Robert Scribner AR Coordinator Stacy Phillips IT Systems Manager Kris Robinson Receptionist Cindy Perez Associate Publisher Tracy Kontrelos Publisher Scott Tobias V O I C E M E D I A G R O U P Executive Editor Chelsey Dequaine-Jerabek Editorial Operations Director Bridget Thomason Director of Membership and Community Development Jennifer Robinson Digital Operations & Audience Strategist Allison Stephenson Audience Strategist Lauren Antonoff Hart Corporate Controller Beth Cook Legal Counsel Steve Suskin Chief Financial Offi cer Jeff Mars Chief Executive Offi cer Scott Tobias V M G N A T I O N A L National Advertising: 1-888-278-9866, www.voicemediagroup.com Senior Vice President of Sales Operations Joe Larkin D I S T R I B U T I O N Westword is available free of charge. 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PHOTOGRAPH BY EVAN SEMÓN Y O U D O N ’ T G O T M A I L Graduates of the University of Colorado Boul- der were promised email addresses that last a lifetime. That lifetime is set to end this summer. CU Boulder plans to terminate its “Email for Life” program on Aug. 31, deleting alumni colorado.edu accounts. The university attrib- uted the decision to rising licensing costs, de- clining usage and security risks. “Maintaining alumni email accounts is no longer sustainable for the university,” announced CU in February. But some Buffs aren’t letting go of their emails without a fi ght. Alumnus Rex Boge fi led a class action lawsuit against the CU Board of Regents on June 15, arguing that the university is breaching its contract with former students. “‘Email for Life’ served as an explicit promise to alumni that they would retain access to their colorado.edu email accounts for their lives,” reads the lawsuit fi led in Denver County District Court. The “Email For Life” program was launched in 2005. Once it ends, new gradu- ates will only get to keep their colorado.edu email for one year after they walk the stage. “The main reason CU Boulder decided to sunset the alumni email program is to protect our digital infrastructure amid a rapidly chang- ing and increasingly volatile digital environ- ment,” says Nicole Cousins, a spokesperson for the university. – Hannah Metzger N O B E E R H E R E Eight months after the offi cial reopening and renaming of downtown’s 16th Street, one of the last remaining vestiges of its previous iteration has disappeared ... along with the “Mall” from its former title. The original Rock Bottom Brewery, once a real draw on the 16th Street Mall, has closed with nothing more than an 8.5-by-11-inch printout taped to the front doors: “Unfortu- nately, we have permanently closed. Thank you for allowing us to serve the Downtown Denver community.” That’s it. The sole offi cial epitaph for the fi rst and fl agship location of Rock Bottom Brewery, which had occupied that spot by Curtis Street since 1991, is the equivalent of a breakup text. That the current owners couldn’t muster at least as many words to mark the restaurant’s closure as the years it had been in business is probably not what the Downtown Denver Partnership had in mind when it called 16th Street a place to “honor our stories and traditions … and embrace homegrown businesses.” To be fair, what was once a homegrown brewery and bar had quickly turned into a corporate chain, along with corporate-chain food, beer and service. But after 35 years, it does deserve more of a retrospective. When Boulder restaurateur Frank Day, who passed away last August, founded the Rock Bottom Brewery, it was one of the fi rst microbreweries in the city, after Wynkoop Brewing. Day was an early pioneer of Colo- rado craft brewing, having also opened the Walnut Brewery in Boulder. Along with Rock Bottom, he also established the Denver Chop House and the Old Chicago chain. An aggressive expansion strategy in the ‘90s soon took the “micro” out of microbrew- ery for Rock Bottom. Day consolidated his restaurant brands into Rock Bottom Restau- rants Inc., and in 1994 issued an initial public offering, becoming the fi rst publicly traded restaurant-brewery in the country. At one point, its so-called “brew-and-chew” model included over 30 Rock Bottom Brewery locations nationwide. In 2010, Rock Bottom merged with the Gordon Biersch Brewing company to form Craftworks. Initially based in Broomfi eld, the company relocated its headquarters to Nashville in 2019. But in 2020, Craftworks went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and temporarily closed 260 res- taurants and breweries nationwide, including a Rock Bottom location in Westminster. The company was acquired by SPB Hospitality a few months later, which reopened many of the locations (but not the Westminster spot). That ownership proved short-lived. In 2024, SPB Hospitality sold the Rock Bot- tom Brewery restaurants and other brands to Kelly Companies, the California-based owner of such brands as Fox & Hound Bar + Grill, Craft Republic Bar & Grill and others. Throughout the SPB Hospitality and Kelly Companies eras, Rock Bottom locations con- tinued closing until only six remained. And now that number is down to fi ve. The other Denver-area Rock Bottoms – in Highlands Ranch, Centennial and Loveland – remain open. For now. – Antony Bruno Read the full stories on westword.com.
