Denver Coffee House Menus: Paris on the Platte, Muddy’s and the Mercury Cafe

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Hi Nancy. Yes, we do have a copy of a City Spirit menu! It's dated from 1990. The menu doesn't have that tagline on it, but it does have a lot of healthy, delicious-sounding food listed (including a Raspberry Black Forest Torte, yum!).

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Around l963, I worked in an earlier version of these coffee houses. Denver's Sign of the Tarot was a Bohemian Coffee House, dominated by a large Italian Expresso Machine with a screaming Eagle at the top. Populated by society's marginal people, then called Beatniks (an early version of hippies), it was also a place to hang out, play chess, read or write poetry and have 'intellectual' conversations. We were next to penniless- next step was homeless. We lived on Kennedy Rations and I ate the leftover English Muffins of the customers. My boss Joe once took me to Salvation Army to buy me a new used pair of tennis shoes for a quarter....the ones I was wearing were a disgrace. I was thrilled. As all the generations above, those are some of the most memorable days of my life. Quite an experience for a girl from a shut down coal mining town of 200.

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My dad was part owner in Muddy’s so growing up there was a formidable part of my childhood. I played chess with ex-con “Crazy Johnny”, who convinced me what I still believe today, that TB is bad. Also as a teenager I hung out at Paris and later worked at the Merc - thankfully Marilyn keeps it going today. Thanks for this wonderful article!

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My dad was part owner in Muddy’s so growing up there was a formidable part of my childhood. I played chess with ex-con “Crazy Johnny”, who convinced me what I still believe today, that TB is bad. Also as a teenager I hung out at Paris and later worked at the Merc - thankfully Marilyn keeps it going today. Thanks for this wonderful article!

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I hung out at Paris in the back room and smoked cloves with my best friend Shanon. We were definitely angst filled teens and I always hoped to get a glimpse of a boy named Trevor Dutton from my high school there. He had a Mohawk and I was secretly in love with him. One night we were sitting on the front patio and a cute skater kid came by and asked Shanon to smoke pot with him down by the river. She headed across the street and went through the old parking garage (I called it the viaduct) down to the river with him. She never came back, so I got worried and went to find her. I was yelling her name in the dark walking in the dirt under the concrete structure. I couldn’t see anything. Eventually I made it to the side by the river and found her sitting with a bunch of skater dudes on the embankment leading down to the Platte. She was fine, just stoned! I am 44 years old now. I was also the lead singer of a band called Tabula Rasa at the time. Thanks for the walk down memory lane!!!

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Oh! Also I bought a leather necklace from an artist who was selling them at Paris. It was a pendant featuring a wisdom tooth. I met the guy whose wisdom tooth I was wearing and we felt we had a special bond.

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Shame not to mention Marilyn/Merc by name.
Headbanger was more heavy metal, industrial & psychedelia than "punk". Temple of Psychick Youth as well.
Cafe 13 another outpost for underage vagabonds, near the apts they ran away to, kind of a Cowtown underage Chelsea Hotel. (Billy Satan?)
Chubby's was the late night Mexican joint to drift to when the clubs & cafes closed. Nice & hot, guaranteed to clean you out in the morning to start over.

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