Inside Denver’s Winter Olympics-Themed Pop-Up Bar

For the team behind the new Podium bar on Little Raven Street, this is its biggest year yet. In August partners Chad Michael George, Jared Schwartz, and Kade Gianinetti opened a sprawling restaurant, Wayward, in Riverfront Park. They’re getting ready to re-open their winning first bar, The Way Back, in Berkeley by the end of the month. And for the second time this winter, they’ve launched a pop-up bar in an adjacent space to the restaurant.

As with the last, Christmas-themed pop-up — Miracle on Little Raven — this one is a decked-out ode to the biggest event of the season. The Podium offers six TV screens for viewing the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games. It’s got an Olympics-themed cocktail and food menu (see playful country-specific drinks and Korean-style bar snacks). And it provides hockey tables and shot skis for more active viewers, and couches and a chair lift for the relaxed watchers of the group. Eater photographer Jonathan Phillips stopped at the bar mid-week to find a packed house of drinkers and fans.

Status: The Podium is open at 1610 Little Raven Street, Suite 100 starting at 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday through the end of the Winter Games, on February 25. Find more information for the restaurant and pop-up on Wayward’s website.