I was from a Western Slope town where we didn’t even have a café. With its warm, eclectic, welcoming crowd of old beatniks, poets, punk rockers, and other weirdos, Muddy’s Café blew my mind. Here in Denver, misfits had a public place of their own, where they could hang out and eat good food without being harassed by cowboys or rednecks (a revelation). In his book, Muddy’s Chronicles: Memoirs from the Last Great Coffeehouse, Bill Stevens chronicles the story of this café and its community of unique people, where you could always find a chess game, an all-night intellectual conversation, a caffeine buzz and companionship. For over twenty-five years, this “philosophical coffeehouse” was one of a very few Denver institutions to provide a haven for independent thinkers and counter-cultural elements. Muddy’s hosted the likes of Allen Ginsburg, Ken Kesey, and all of Denver’s mayors and Colorado’s governors of the time. But, “Egalitarian in nature, [Muddy’s] also sheltered the bizarre, the demented and those soulless beings the world never knew existed. There was no schism between the bitter and the frightened, or normal and the sociopath; Muddy’s protected and gave sanctuary to all” (Stevens, p. 8). Muddy's was located at 2557 15th Street. It's later incarnation was at 2100 Curtis. Place a hold on Muddy’s Chronicles [10]. Search our Western History Subject Index [11] for old newspaper articles about Muddy’s Cafe. Or come into the Western History and Genealogy Department [12] to read our copy of Muddy’s Chronicles and to see other books about important restaurants, hotels, and businesses of Denver and the West.