16 NOVEMBER 9-15, 2023 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | LETTERS | CONTENTS | What’s in a Name? BY PATRICIA CALHOUN There are at least eight million stories in the city, naked or not. This is one of them. Denver native Leslie Twarogowski saw our recent piece on changes in ownership at the Lion’s Lair — longtime co-owner Tony Meggit has added two partners, Demi Mer- ritt, who has been working at the Lair for about six years, and Thorne (“That’s what people call me; there are too many Michaels,” he quips) — and added another chapter. Her grandfather, Jerry Friedland, once owned the venue at 2022 East Colfax Avenue...when it was known as the Playboy Lounge. But a call from Hugh Hefner changed that. The space itself dates back to at least the ’30s, when it was the Salad Bowl, according to the indispensable Corky Scholl, founder of Save the Signs, who pored over old phone books to pinpoint the building’s various identities. In 1939, it was listed as the Skol Inn; from 1940 to 1955, it was the Aladdin Tavern, which offered Chinese food and “organ music every evening,” according to an old matchbook cover. Twarogowski’s extended Jewish family owned many different businesses on Colfax. One branch went into the liquor business and opened Argonaut. By 1956, Friedland had bought the venue at 2022 East Col- fax, switched from organ music to jazz and named the club the Playboy Lounge. But that changed in 1963, when Hugh Hefner, who’d founded Playboy magazine a decade earlier and was now planning a string of clubs based on the concept (the fi rst had opened in 1960 in Chicago), wanted to expand into Colorado. He offered Friedland $5,000 to change the name of his place. Then as now, Twarogowski notes, bars operated on a tight margin, and Friedland took the money. He changed the name of the club to the Playroom and continued running it as an upscale jazz club, not a strip club. The Al Rose Trio was a big draw, and the legendary Charlie Burrell, who just turned 103, was a regular performer there. In 1967, Friedland sold the Playroom to John Lyons. He renamed it the Aladdin Lounge, then switched to Lyons Lair and fi nally Lion’s Lair in 1974. Tony Meggit and Doug Kauffman bought the club from Lyons more than thirty years ago; Kauffman is now out, but Meggit has two new partners who want to keep the legacy alive. Colorado’s Playboy Club fi nally opened in December 1967 at the top of the Radisson Hotel, at 1776 Grant Street; the hotel is now the Warwick, and today the club is just a memory — albeit one that leaves a smile on a certain generation of businessmen’s faces. Friedland went on to buy another legend- ary entertainment club, the Hungry I in San Francisco. Under his ownership, it actually morphed into a strip club, Twarogowski says. But that’s another town and another story. While Thorne is now mostly working behind the scenes — “He takes care of all the paperwork,” Meggit says — Merritt is excited to focus on booking and going hard on the entertainment programming at the Lion’s Lair. “We want to make it a reliable place to see live music,” she explains. “It’s always been that, but we’re trying to go all out on it now. We want people to know that they can come in any Thursday, Friday or Saturday and support local music and a local business.” On Friday, November 10, the Lion’s Lair will host a big bash dubbed Lairapalooza. “Basically every person that works here has a band that they’re in or does comedy or bingo,” Merritt says. “So this will be everyone’s bands performing, with drag king bingo in between sets and the Gong Show.” All of the proceeds from the night will go to Demi’s Animal Res- cue, a no-kill rescue that Merritt started when she was still in high school. Lion’s Lair is located at 2022 East Colfax Avenue and is open from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Wednesday and 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursday through Sunday. For more, visit lionslairlounge.squarespace.com. CAFE FIND MORE FOOD & DRINK COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/RESTAURANTS The Playboy Lounge in the ’50s, when it was a hot jazz club. COURTESY OF LESLIE TWAROGOWSKI ....... SAT&SUN 10 AM- 1 PM ESPRESSO MARTINIS ....... ......
