At Denver’s new ‘listening bars,’ the music is as important as food and drinks

Malinche Audiobar s narrow ground-floor unit has enough room to fit people Customers sit along the bar or at a smattering of tables while chef Jose Avila and his staff pour mezcal and prepare startlingly refined dishes such as roasted octopus in black miso and chilmole and for dessert nixtamalized custard with fresh pear and salmon roe glazed in a mixture of yuzu and piloncillo cane sugar The mix table sits behind the bar at Malinche Audiobar in downtown Denver on Oct Photo by RJ Sangosti The Denver Post But food and liquor weren t the driving forces behind Malinche which opened in October at Platte St It was music Avila researched a type of Japanese bar called a kissa where vinyl pressings of jazz and instrumental records reign supreme and customers dedicate themselves to listening as much as they do to imbibing He hired professional sound engineers to install Technics turntables on the bar top high-quality amplifiers and speakers on the bar back and two massive speakers encased in stained-wood cabinets at the front of the room He branded his menu s fusion of Japanese and Mexican cuisines Nikkei-Mexa a term that also describes his adaptation of a traditional kissa to highlight the music and practices of his Latin American upbringing Malinche s opening was one of the the majority anticipated in Denver in part because it was the first of four concepts Avila plans to reveal over the next sparse months It was also the latest in an eclectic collection of bars and restaurants showcasing expensive sound systems and curated record collections as their primary appeal Sometimes called listening bars or hi-fi bars the establishments have proliferated on the East and West coasts and are gathering a following in Denver Their popularity in the United States has coincided with the steady resurgence of vinyl record sales which have reached or surpassed billion every year since according to the Recording Industry Association of America and a cautious return to nightlife in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic I think music and sound in restaurants is sometimes misunderstood by everyone from the designer to the people working in the dining room noted restaurateur Bobby Stuckey whose Boulder flagship Frasca Food and Wine received the James Beard Award for outstanding restaurant this year and has won a Michelin star three years running You have to meet your customers where they are and come see what experience they re looking for Music has to play to that Music is personal Related Articles A less traditional Thankgiving Eve tradition Downtown Denver caviar system in lieu of holiday traffic After years Boulder s famed Dark Horse bar to be demolished move to make way for housing maturation Medieval mead bar Carw Gwyn debuts with opening on Colfax in Denver RiNo apartment building asks judge to evict rooftop cocktail lounge Sanitas Brewing to close shut down three locations due to rising costs and lower sales of craft beer Dinner at Frasca is an intensive affair that can last up to three hours The organization stands out while the music there is relegated to the background if it s audible at all Stuckey announced Not so at Sunday Vinyl the bar and restaurant he opened on the platform at Denver s Union Station in He based its concept on one of his favorite leisure pursuits listening to records with his wife on Sunday mornings Sunday Vinyl is equipped with a sound system that wows with its sheer size and sleek design The McIntosh turntable at the front has an acrylic platter that glows blue while a stack of McIntosh amplifiers and five-foot-tall speakers by the Italian brand Sonus faber stand beneath a portrait of a young expressing happiness Stevie Wonder The price listed on the Sonus faber website for a pair of such speakers is If music is going to be your POV you kind of have to invest in that Stuckey disclosed If you re a steakhouse that s doing incredible steaks you ve got to presumably invest in a more expensive grill than someone who doesn t need that The allure of Stuckey s restaurant and its central location drew a line of customers the night of Paul McCartney s headlining show at Coors Field in October And although the bartender spun a greatest hits compilation of McCartney s post-Beatles band on the turntable the speakers were playing a broader playlist of Beatles songs Those who noticed the playlist was not in sync with the records on the turntable could ve unveiled the experience dissonant something that the owners of ESP Hifi at Santa Fe Dr wouldn t be confident with Audio and music are personal reported ESP co-owner William Minter who declined an interview but responded to e-mailed questions So he is suspicious of businesses using vinyl and kissas as an aesthetic instead of for their intimacy and sonic qualities It would be a shame if it became wallpaper to add on to a bar Minter and his business partners opened ESP in after an influential trip to Japan where they say they visited four dozen kissas a concept that began in the s for people who couldn t find jazz music anywhere else The shelves along ESP s back wall are filled with obscure jazz rock and Japanese city pop records A sound system like theirs with tube amplifiers vintage Klipsch speakers and a four-channel rotary mixer can cost tens of thousands of dollars There is certainly a trend of having an analog system records on the back bar caring about acoustics and audio in the bar setting Minter commented But for me the thing I fell in love with in Japan is not these additions to the Western bar experience but that the owner cared in such a personal way about these things and made each their own Sunday Vinyl senior bartender Alex Garuillo flips a record on a McIntosh sound system at Sunday Vinyl in Denver on Wednesday Oct Photo by Andy Cross The Denver Post ESP s floating hours right after opening are the best for those looking for a kissa experience A bartender will pick a record say Steve Hiett s instrumental guitar album Down on the Road by the Beach and play both sides or use a second turntable to segue into another record Table chatter tends to usurp the music later in the night For audiophiles visiting ESP during floating hours is like slipping into a warm bath Scarce bars have the same deference and reverence for kissas Mitchell Foster another of ESP s founders characterized the majority of the bars spinning vinyl in the U S as being copies of copies of bars that were inspired by OG listening bars in Japan Plenty of of the owners of these establishments have never been to Japan to experience the real thing and it shows Foster disclosed by email A McIntosh record competitor at Sunday Vinyl in Denver on Wednesday Oct Photo by Andy Cross The Denver Post A universal language Plenty of bars and breweries use straightforward vinyl nights as a way to attract customers Examples include Odell Brewing s Sloan s Lake taproom in Denver and the Vine Street Pub which lets customers bring in a record to play in exchange for a beer or a side of French fries Others like Wobble HiFi a listening bar that opened in Fort Collins this year host listening parties for artists releasing new albums At least one more vinyl-centric destination is launching in the near future Pon Pon a European-style dive bar in RiNo has its own set of turntables where DJs spin dance and rock records on the weekends its owners are planning a second bar with a higher-quality sound system near the Ogden Theatre on East Colfax Avenue As for Malinche s Avila count him among those who haven t been to Japan He s visiting the country for the first time next year His love of music stretches back to when he was a child in Mexico City falling asleep in chairs at festive family functions or holding hands and swaying with his aunties There s the DJ you know Avila reported You don t really need anything else His own tastes make room for both heavy metal and Kenny G a curiosity he developed working at Tower Records At Malinche he wants curators to spin older albums that others likely haven t heard More so than kissas a major influence was Avila s knowledge of Mexico and its capital where music and food were both loud and up close He traded Japanese whiskeys for mezcals that hang from glass jugs above the bar Instead of housing speakers or records one wall is dedicated to a large papier-mache sculpture of Mayahuel an Aztec goddess of mezcal and pulque an alcoholic drink made using fermented parts of the agave plant Bartender Manuel Bello prepares drinks at Malinche Audiobar in downtown Denver on Oct Photo by RJ Sangosti The Denver Post Unlike ESP Malinche isn t beholden strictly to playing vinyl At times a phone connected to the mixer shuffles through a streaming playlist of Latin rock cumbia and South American folk music Avila noted he views Malinche as a population hub with music as the universal language a connection stretching back thousands of years to the Aztecs He noted similarities between Mexican and Japanese way of life that made it easier to blend concepts into his own kind of listening bar Both are hardworking and care greatly about every detail he announced But the reality of that approach comes with a hefty price tag Once you do it professionally it s a different deal he disclosed All the equipment everything adds more zeroes to the equation Subscribe to our new food newsletter Stuffed to get Denver food and drink news sent straight to your inbox