American bison, listed as buffalo on the menu, something wot I did not make but ate. This is the speciality of The Fort. My dinner companion had the most popular thing which included elk, bison, and a little bird. The little bird seemed like nonsense to me, all those tiny bones for scant reward, I think I chose wisely.
The Fort is located off 285 at Morrison Colorado, but not in the center of town rather on the edge of it away from the central road and the crowd at Red Rocks amphitheater. It's an historic replica of an earlier fort built by a true Denver character, Sam Arnold, recently passed. The Fort was host to Clinton's 1997 Summit of Eight.
I don't know. I passed this place at least 100 times growing up in the area but we never went in. We imagined it to be a little bit weird. My parents home is nearby and my brother and I passed by regularly on our way to climbing every single outcropping within Red Rocks Park at least a dozen times. Even my German Shepard could make it up to the cave looking out onto the theater. There was no way we could leave him behind. He cried like a big baby so loudly and miserably that it forced us to lift him up over the parts impossible for K-9 anatomy just to shut him up. All three of my Belgian Sheepdogs were way too smart for that nonsense. They followed to the extent that they could then patiently waited at the bottom for our return but we couldn't coax any one of them beyond what they sensed to be unsafe.
I've seen Sam Arnold on Public Television a few times regaling with his history of the West. Here is a short very good bio if you are interested and here is a short video of Sam in action. Here's another. This is my third visit to the restaurant but I do wish that I had ventured inside earlier instead of dismissing it so casually. I'd have known a fine restaurant longer and I would have had the chance of meeting Sam Arnold.
We were loosing light. The following photo set was taken at high iso using two lenses, one that telephotos and another with fixed focal length but with a wide open aperture that allowed pictures in candle light that are much brighter than the actual room.
The parking lot was full. From the parking lot, you know right off that you are in for something different. Signs on the rocks say, "No climbing. Rattle snakes." I told our waiter I thought that was a load just to keep people off the rocks. He said, "Oh no. There really are rattle snakes out there. Not so many right now but when it warms up they come right up here to this patio. A lot of them." I believed him.
Visitors enter a courtyard.
Inside the courtyard, visitors turn back at the entry they just walked through. The room behind the wooden door inside the portico ↓ is the wine storage room. The restaurant is on the opposite side of the courtyard. Now the visitor gains a sense of the dimensions of the rooms inside the walls of the fort by judging the outside dimensions against the dimensions of the courtyard. This is misleading because the restaurant proper continues for some distance down the slope beyond what the visitor imagines by the width of the front and the width of the sides. It's a trick. Then beyond that is an enclosed patio the width of the whole fort.
A backward look to the sculptural snake that overlooks the parking
On the other side of the wall of this corner is where our vehicle is parked. The opposite corner, catty-corner, are the doors to the restaurant. ↓
A clay oven. ↑ The last time I was here the tent was a teepee, I think. It is a gift shop.
I like these door handles a lot.
These lizards remind me of Puerto Vallarta where there are geckos running all over the place. At night if you wake up and look at the ceiling, you will see half a dozen climbing around. And if you don't see them, then you've been cheated out of your gecko fun. The shops in town sell clay pots with little clay geckos stuck on them for decoration. They're very attractive to tourists. I went into such a shop with hundreds of clay pots on display stacked up all over in long rows. Half of them had these three-dimensional clay gecko decorations on them. They're the cutest little things. I reached down to touch one of the clay geckos, as you do, and the thing scampered off. Imagine the shock at being so thoroughly faked out by a lizard so that it appears as if a clay pot suddenly springs to life. It made me want to buy that pot, but then who would want a pot without a gecko on it?
Back at The Fort, the visitor walks through a couple of layers of dining areas, not shown in this photo set. Along the sides are separate dining areas and bars. The kitchen grill is open, visitors walk by it to their table so visitors can see for themselves all the action going on. We were seated at the very end in the third dining section next to the glass wall. Immediately outside our table is this patio.
Beyond the patio (where the waiter says the snakes come to warm) are the gently rolling slopes of Jefferson County that pile up to the foothills.
Outside was the spookiest music ever.
I sense our dinner is being served.
Inside, the music again. A guy playing a flute comes around and pauses at our table. I say to the man, "Well, it's a big improvement over a mariachi band, I must say." He seems eager to explain himself to us. He tells us all about the instrument he's playing. Says it's authentic American Indian flute. I say, "Looks bamboo." He said, "The guy carved it that way, then elaborates further. I remarked, that I thought the music outside was spooky. He said, "It's HAUNTING. That was me you heard out there. I'm hooked up with this wire to a sound system."
"Oh."
Conclusion: The Fort is a great place to take visitors, or any occasion at all. You can tell that visitors are having a great time by the carefree noise they make. It can get a bit loud especially when they put the real buffalo heads on top of people's heads who are having a birthday and then take their pictures for all posterity. For free.
Cost: With hors ď'oeuvres and wine the bill for two was $117.00 It seemed to us very reasonable. We were both very pleased especially with the duck quesadilla and Maytag dressing.
Further thoughts, now that the wine wore off.
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