Entry No. 27 — the Boulder file — filed under: dive bar
The Sink
Boulder's oldest bar, open since 1923 in a sunken basement space on The Hill near CU, The Sink is equal parts tavern and accidental museum. Every inch of the low ceilings and walls has been claimed — beatnik artists Mike Dormier and Llloyd Kavich kicked off the mural tradition in the late 1950s, including Kavich's deliberately misspelled signature ("just for the 'L' of it"). Old newspaper clippings from the Boulder Daily Camera are sealed into the tabletops. Zippo-scorched ceiling signatures layer over decades of graffiti. The most famous mark belongs to Robert Redford, commemorated in a caricature mural — he mopped these floors as a janitor in 1955 while attending CU before becoming a film icon. None of it feels curated. All of it is real.
The move: Arrive early enough to snag a booth, order Sink burgers and a pitcher, then spend the wait reading the walls together — spot the Redford mural, decode the layered graffiti overhead, and try to find the oldest legible date you can. Low-key, genuinely weird, zero pretension.
📍 Before you go Open daily 11 am to 10 pm (11 pm Fri–Sat), no reservations needed. Street parking on 13th and Pennsylvania is metered until 7 pm Mon–Sat; free after 7 pm and all day Sunday. The 14th Street Lot at 1205 Pleasant St is a short walk and free on Sundays. Gets loud on weekend nights with the college crowd — weekday evenings are calmer for actually reading the walls.
- 📍 Boulder
- 💸 $$
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: 1165 13th Street, Boulder, CO 80302 (The Hill neighborhood, one block west of CU campus)
Hours: Added 2026-06-11 — confirm current hours before you go.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Proof: source 1 · source 2 · source 3 · source 4
last checked: 2026-06-11