Shelby’s Bar & Grill

OMG why does it SMELL SO BAD??? Mixture of moldy old carpet and soured bar rags. Takes your breath and stings your eyes at the same time. Yikes.

This is a BAR. There shouldn’t be reviews over a paragraph long. This is a place you go to DRINK. Its a breath of fresh air from all the bars in Denver where people want to talk about craft beer and prohibition style cocktails. You sit down, get your two for one beers with a shot and talk to the other back-​to-​basics drinkers and people from all walks of life and none of the conversation has to be about how the microbrew you ordered double queef-​hopped IPA. The bartenders are nice, chances are if they don’t like you, not many people do. They specialize in bottom shelf liquor and domestic drafts. Its perfect for people who are not pretentious and extremely realistic about their drinking goals.

For a bar this has a really nice feel. The bartender had a lot to be desired when it came to hospitality and overall customer service. Apparently that’s not a priority he’s been there 10 years. Rude!

Bartender, Wendy, ROCKS! She made my birthday 100% better with her wit, knowledge, & humor. A great little gem in the heart of Denver!

Great happy hour! Have the nachos and hot wings! The burgers are all very good too :)

tijuana burger… best burger i have ever tasted! hot! hot! green chili was great to!

I write this as a former service industry member of 10+ years, who is seriously judgey when it comes to restaurants… especially with bartenders.
Shelby’s is a Denver icon. Bar food and service are great and everything is priced so that you can go often and not regret it. I love that last part! I also love the brats & kraut, Philly’s, and wings! Great dive bar! Nannette, owner/​bartender, keeps up with the rush for hours, by herself, during a packed house, for Carolina Panthers games. Impressive! I saw a few people say the place is dirty, but its always been clean when I’ve been there. I’ve got no complaints and never had a reason for one. That is my reason for 5 stars.

I like Shelby’s because it’s a small-​ish, divey bar located in the middle of Downtown Denver, and the bartenders are sassy. Plus, there’s a pinball machine (I loves me some pinball).
2−4−1 Happy Hours always get me, and that is why I like this bar after work. The drinks are cheap enough, but cheaper after work. Hallelujah.
The last couple of times that I have been there, there have been Colorado Trivia written on chalkboards above the bar. I always like to enjoy my alcohol while broadening my knowledge base.
Oh, and I am not sure about the men’s restroom, but in the women’s restroom, in the left stall when you walk in, there are pictures of 70s and 80s TV stars to watch you do your business. There I was, doing my thing, while Burt Reynolds, Erik Estrada, and David Cassidy were watching me do my business. Nice.
I shall be back. And soon.

I usually love dove bars. They are my first choice when grabbing a beer and some cheap bar food. But this place, wow. The smell kept me to one beer and gone… I was sad because I was looking for a place to spend a few hours at.

The bartender is a hoot.
The place is a classic dive you have to have fun there other wise you just don’t get the dive bar concept.
Make it a place you go to if you are hitting the spots at the 16^th street mall. It is worth the walk!

A pretty decent bar going experience. I love the cozy feel of this bar. It has the atmosphere of a small town bar, which is great. I went here for a work happy hour, and despite the fact that the bar tender had about 30 people in the bar and was alone, she was great! She was friendly and tried to get to each of us as we needed it. I’m sure it was a little overwhelming having that many people come in all at once and being alone, so kudos to her. I’d definitely come back.

I have a lot of things to say about this place, but none are positive. As other mention they flat out lie about their «promotions». They really give no reason to come inside as they treat you as you are the red-​headed step child inside. It smells terrible (maybe someone should notify the city as they can not be up to standards!). The service was awful, the bartender was pretty much a joke. So if you took out the service, the smell, the look, the feel of the place, and pretty much everything else associated with this bar and just left the beer, it’d be a pretty good place…
Terrible, just terrible

Smells musty inside and they did not honor a promotion they were advertising outside on a banner. Only upside was that the beer was cold. Overall pretty disappointed in this bar. I had higher hopes.

This was a nice divey little gem we found while walking around. We were looking for someplace close to the hotel and cheap. This fit the bill. Unfortunately, the night we were there it was pretty dead. Drinks were cheap, service was good. The only bad thing I can say about this place was there was a funky smell in it. Very musty. However, the bartender made up for this. She was wonderful.

this is a real neighborhood bar. it looks like a bar, it smells like a bar and it feels like a bar. wood décor, a few TV’s on the wall, torn up booths line the walls. nothing fancy or high maintenance about it. the staff here is awesome and welcoming. service for food and drinks is accurate and fast. there are lots of regulars, whom are all super friendly and nice as well. the vibe is really chill and relaxing. the place gets pretty packed after work for happy hour. i usually get there a little early to grab my same table and order my same drink, a double tall vodka lemonade for $ 3.50.

Just a great little neighborhood bar & grill.
Just enough good, local, craft brew on tap to keep me happy. Fat Tire, 90 Shilling and Easy Street Wheat were on tap recently.
They have a great juke box here. Not only is it one of those web enabled ones with like every song, ever. It also has an announcement LED screen at the top. So, if you hear a song that is awesome and you don’t know who it’s by, just check out the LED screen from across the bar, announcing the band & song name. Nice.
Eat It: The English Stew. It’s fantastic and surprisingly authentic, as this is not an English Pub. And, they serve it in a LOAF of bread. No joke, think of those large round breads they serve artichoke dip in. Yum!
Everyone here is really friendly. I butted into the conversation with the regulars a few times. Everyone is just there to kick back, maybe play some pinball, watch the game, or just have a beer. Very laid back. I love it. I will definitely be back.

F*ckin’ Universe! I have to up it two stars!
As we paid for our lunches, the barkeep/​cashier stated that she coudn’t do anything about the 18% gratuity because there were seven of us. We couldn’t convince her that the concept applies to dine-​in customers when you are serving them and running around getting them stuff. All you did was bag up the styrofoam boxes and take our money.*sigh* Screw it. I did inquire further about the shortage of chicken fried chicken when it was offered as a special. She explained that many people are in a hurry during lunch and the chicken fried chicken takes about 15 minutes to prepare. She stated they did attempt to make more at one time but, when the chicken didn’t sell out, they didn’t have anything else to do with it so it wasn’t profitable enough for them. I can understand that. Additionally, they run several specials at a time for lunch. Wednesday, it was the chicken fried chicken, some type of burger, a salad, and chicken noodle soup. It made more sense when I discovered the chicken fried chicken wasn’t their soel ‘daily’ special.
All in all, the barkeep wasn’t rude or mean or a total bitch like we expected her to be due to the issues with ordering, the gratuity and what not.
I must say, when we got back to the office, and sat down to eat, we were all pleasantly surprised with the chicken fried chicken plate. It came with the meat– that was not over breaded, over cooked, over seasoned and was huge as far as chicken breasts go– mash potatoes– decent– cream gravy– nicely peppered, just the right consistency-​and a green bean and corn medley– not too soft, not too crispy and seasoned well.
The special was around $ 7.95 a plate plus tax. With the gratuity, we paid $ 10 per plate for this special. Guess what? If this plate was regularly priced at $ 10 for lunch, I would have no problem paying the $ 10 plus tax for the plate. It was actually that good.
Wait…something just dawned on me though. If we ordered all of the six chicken fried chicken they had prepared AND they went ahead and prepared the seventh just for us … why was chicken fried chicken still listed as an available special for that day in the window when we walked up? I mean, it’s not like the place was overflowing with people trying to get in and get lunch hindering the barkeep or one server from updating the board prior to opening the doors for lunch service. Things that make you say hmm…
Anywho…I will definitely be back to sample other items they have on their menu but, going forward, I will just dine in to avoid the unnecessariness we encountered in the early part of this experience. I can actually become a real fan of this place during lunch, especially, since there seem to be only a scattering of people in the place during lunch hours (I don’t like to be crowded) and it’s seedy and obscure enough for rendezvous’g. *teehee*