Popination Revelation

a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: Backcountry Pizza & Taphouse.

I’ve written about Backcountry Pizza & Taphouse before, in one of those original Popinations posts with the brief summaries, before I realized they were going to become a series. And so I thought this very important place from my past deserved its own separate, detailed piece dedicated to it.

Pelican Pete’s, or, is that Dolan’s?

The space that Backcountry Pizza & Taphouse now occupies has been around forever, though it’s been different things, usually more of a posh type. In its long past (no research allowed for these, remember), it was a high-end seafood restaurant called Pelican Pete’s, that my family was never able to afford when I was a kid. Later, during my grad school days at Naropa U, of which campus was a block away on Arapahoe Rd, it was some kind of mod overpriced bistro that I could never afford at that time either. That was Dolan’s. If it had been Backcountry back then, I think I would have moved in. But hey, better late than never, right? And once I lived around a curved and shady corner in the Birdhouse, I sort of did. 

I loved having a 3rd place to stroll to that was affordable, good, and within stumbling distance of my 1st place (Mountain Sun was just a tetch too long a walk away after a long day). And I was friends with many people there and it was always such a comfy place to be. I hardly ever go there anymore, as it’s a little bit awkward when I’m not literally living a block away, or going to school there, or the like. Except for just the other week. I’ll get into that in a minute.

Ah, Backcountry! Only a wee twisty walk from the Birdhouse, with the best pizza in town and cheap (but an excellent selection of) draft beer. My home away from home. My Cheers. I did become the Cliff to that place, for sure, and got to know the other characters that would come in on lunch breaks or between classes (CU is just up the hill) or, to my mild worry, between clients at the tattoo parlor kitty-corner. I’d have my regular seat at the granite bar, usually next to the bar manager, where we’d do the NYT crossword with whoever was the main day shift bartender. I’d listen to their stories about their car wrecks and dating woes, and they’d hear my stories about the teaching grind and the divorce paperwork. 

I didn’t alter the color in this photo at all—the January skies in Boulder are just as blue as the paint and sign on the building.

Backcountry

…is perched on a very weird and tight corner of Arapahoe Rd in Boulder, just as the right lane disappears, so turning in to the Backcountry back door parking lot is not very visible and a little too close. But it’s right at the bottom of Folsom Hill, which is the hill that leads up to the stadium on CU-Boulder’s campus, and they’re smart enough during college football season to charge for their parking spots, and to give deals for those who park there, go to the game, and come back for a beer and a slice. Do they still do this? Not sure, actually—but I always thought it was a great idea. Also out back is their big wood-fired pizza oven, which is why their pizza is so very good.

Inside, they’ve got the front room with the bar and some high tables and low cramped booths. Kids aren’t technically allowed in this bar centered area, but I don’t know that they strictly adhere to that rule. There’s a back room, too, large, cavernous, and big-screened, which is where the families are supposed to go, and where the Geeks Who Drink* trivia nights happen. In a connected but separate windowed cubby type hall is a row of old school pinball machines. I have never once used one of the pinball machines, nor have I sat in the back family room, in all my time going to Backcountry.

*Fun fact: in a particularly desperate financial period of mine, I actually auditioned to be a trivia master for GwD, all up to actually doing a trial run at an established trivia night. I would have taken over the Illegal Pete’s trivia nights in Boulder. But right before I accepted the job offer, I realized the effort and processes involved each week was not worth the low pay and small bar tabs that were the compensation. It was one of the first baby steps I took towards standing up for my own worth.

My normal order at Backcountry has always been a Stone IPA. Sometimes with a shot, but usually with a slice of pizza only. Green olive & feta. Don’t @ me.

What’s good to consume there? Well they’ve got a ton of taps happening, some of a rare and unusual and strong nature, like the Pliny the Elder series, cask ales, and such. Their pizza is delicious, as I said above, and their garlic knots are legendary. But it’s funny—all their food is top notch, from their salads to their phenomenal reubens and grilled cheeses. How they keep the prices so low and stay open, I have no idea, but I don’t really want to know; I don’t want to jinx it.

There’s the back door, from which I used to enter frequently, when I lived in the Birdhouse, behind the back parking lot with its pizza oven, in the crunchy college neighborhood of pricey ratholes.

There was a jovial and comfy regular scenario at Backcountry when it was My Neighborhood Bar: there’d be Jordan behind the bar, or managing from the bar itself, with his laptop screen switching between work stuff and the NYT crossword. We’d fill out the crossword together, often with day-tender Mel behind the bar, too. Or there’d be Jake, who would usually not bartend but serve me if I weren’t at the bar but elsewhere in the front area, eating with other people like my parents, or noshing garlic knots with Friend Harold for our book club. I was chummy with the other regulars too, sort of like I am now at IC, though I don’t remember anyone’s names at Backcountry.

When the pandemic hit, I was holed up at my partner’s place (the previous place to my current cohabitation with him now, in the same complex). Once things slowly opened up again and I started bussing back and forth again, albeit less frequently, Backcountry delivered until they were able to open again. Once they did open, it was only a couple taps’ worth, but it was a huge sigh of relief for me once they did—it was painful to be right there with them all shuttered and such.

---

Going there in later times when I didn’t live there as often was a little depressing: once, there was an attack on the building’s big glass windows afterhours; and Mel had a big health scare; the staff that was left were mainly people I didn’t know. The shifts changed and the people changed, and I hadn’t heard, in future visits, if Mel had survived or not but I didn’t know anyone I felt comfortable asking. Backcountry got dreary as well as hectic, and it wasn’t the easy, relaxing place that had been so pleasant for so long . Then I moved away again, this time permanently, and didn’t get there very often at all anymore—It’s just enough out of the way from downtown and my parents’ place that it’s not easy to get to if I’m doing any of the other things I normally need to do when in Boulder. I realized during that disappointing time that Backcountry really used to be my neighborhood 3rd place—it hit me harder when it was gone as I knew it. It got kind of depressing once it was no longer so familiar, too, and so I stopped making the effort to go there in the first place.

It’s the kind of place you can spend hours, for days, in. That server with the gauges in his ears is familiar to me, too, but I wasn’t a real regular when he was around a lot, at least I don’t think so. At any rate, I wasn’t here enough during his tenure to remember his name.

Back to Backcountry

I haven’t been there in …months if not a year or more. Hang on, when was the last time I was there? Sometime in 2022, or is that 2021? Anyway. I stopped going on my Boulder errand treks because of the above reasons: it’s just out of the way enough that it’s not convenient, and, well. It had started to depress me. But this last Boulder trip the other day, I decided to make a special visit, so I could snap some fresh pics of the place and compose a special Popination for it. Such an important place in my history deserves an essay of its own. I decided I would grit my teeth and have the experience one more time.

After my Boulder errands were concluded, I walked in the front door this time, and what did I see? A miracle: a corner of my past, preserved in amber (ale):

• Jordan’s laptop was sitting in its customary place, open to the NYT crossword, and him behind the bar

• Jake sitting there at the bar (as a customer, this time, not a server)

• A regular (sorry I don’t remember any of their names) right there next to Jake, chatting in his normal spot, just like it used to be.

When I walked in, the whole scene stopped, turned to look at me, exclaimed “Jenn!!!” and Jordan had to come out from the bar to give me a hug. I was not expecting that—I thought that Backountry had evolved past me, without me, but here it was, almost just like it used to be. So I sat down next to the crossword, didn’t even need to order my Stone before it was served to me, and learned not only did Jake have a very cool sounding new job, but they tell me Mel is alive and even well and living in Longmont. What a joy. What a relief. 

Jordan had to comb his beard when he heard he was being photographed.

Now that I’ve been back to Backcountry, the way it is and was, I’m going to have to make it a point to get over there more often when I have to be in Boulder. Thing is, I’m not really in Boulder very much at all anymore. Absence, after all, does make the heart grow fonder, doesn’t it. I guess that’s true for Backcountry. It’s certainly true for me.