Yacht Club

Yacht Club opened in 2021 at 3701 North Williams Street in Cole, a residential pocket north-east of downtown, from co-owners McLain Hedges and Mary Alison Wright. The stated concept is an anti-club club, and in practice the bar sits at the intersection of three formats that usually stay apart: a technical cocktail bar, a natural wine bar, and a dive. Hollywood Frank's hot dogs and dim-sum-style snacks are the food. The bar debuted on the World's 50 Best Bars list in 2023 and took the Ketel One Sustainable Bar Award at North America's 50 Best Bars the same year, recognition tied to fermentation and preservation work that extends the usable life of seasonal produce rather than to any single drink. Esquire named it to its Best Bars in America list and Westword named it Best New Bar, both in 2023, and Eater Denver includes it among its essential Denver bars. The room is open from 4pm to 2am six nights a week and closed on Tuesdays, which makes it one of the few high-end cocktail programmes in Denver still pouring at closing time.

The non-alcoholic drinks live on the menu under the heading Soft Bangers (N.A.), and they follow the same split-base, wine-forward, faintly contrarian logic as the full-proof list. Paradise Waits ($10) is the most-cited of them: Lyre's White Cane with green pineapple, celery, lime, curry leaf and salt. Freebird ($12) builds Pathfinder against a bitter aperitivo with pineapple, lime, salt and soda. Coconono ($12) is coconut cordial with lime, mint and sparkling tea. The YC N/A Spritz ($10) runs Seedlip Garden with strawberry, magnolia, verjus and tonic. A Suze Tonic N/A ($9) and a cold brew and tonic ($6) round out the section. Visit Denver's December 20, 2025 spirit-free guide argued that the bar's cocktail obsessiveness carries directly into the mocktails, naming Paradise Waits, and the bar's pricing supports the point: the zero-proof drinks are cheaper than the spirited ones but are not simplified versions of them. The section is short by design rather than by neglect: four built drinks that turn over with the rest of the menu, plus two lower-effort options for anyone who wants something long and bitter without a full build. Because the bar keeps late hours and takes no reservations, it also functions as a place a non-drinker can arrive at 11pm and still be served something considered.