This is a great and very friendly little store. It is on a nice block, has ample parking, and the prices are always reasonable. The staff has always been very helpful. Wine is the focus here, and they really know their vino. On my visits to Joy they have suggested wines I should try, offered advice on gifts, and they even invite their customers to a monthly wine-tasting. For bargain shoppers they always keep in stock at least 100 wines, from all over the world, for under $10.

This is a newish shop in Stapleton that has a very wide selection and good prices. They also sell really great wine gift baskets for people like me who forget about birthdays until the last moment.

This is what every neighborhood liquor store should be like. The place is tiny but they have everything. And fast friendly service is what they are all about. Often, the owner will scramble up a ladder to get at a bottle tucked onto a high shelf. And the store is always open till midnight. Perfect for the late night run during a poker game.

They open early, they close late, and they keep the prices low. The store is kept clean and well-lit and the staff is awake and helpful. Can you ask for much more? I also like the sign out front. Denver needs more signs with vehicles perched on top.

A great little store with a very friendly staff. The customers seem to mostly be regulars from the neighborhood, talking about wine and restaurants. If you ever want to know what kind of wine to serve with duck, drop in and ask these guys. I’ll bet they would know.

The big Kahuna of Liquor stores. A true liquor supermarket, the Argonaut is always bustling. If you go in a few hours before a big sporting event it is just barely contained chaos. Row after row of every type of hooch, priced from dirt-cheap to mind-bogglingly expensive. Not the nicest or cleanest, or in the best neighborhood, but still great. A trip to the Arg is a Denver tradition.

This tiny, frightening store does most of its business selling single bottles of malt-liquor to sinister-looking young men. Most of the liquor they carry is of the pocket sized plastic bottle type. This is one of the few places in Denver where I have ever felt truly, troublingly, unsafe.

Filthy. This place is depressing and foul-smelling. It is always filled with bums and screaming drunks. A truly terrible place to shop.

On a bad block of Colfax, this store has adopted a bad attitude. I have been to this liquor store on three occasions and have always been treated like crap. On one visit, after perhaps a minute in the store trying to make a selection from the beer case, I was told that “browsing” was not allowed. I needed to “buy something or get out”. On my next visit my car was broken into in the parking lot and someone stole my flashhlight and a road atlas. I shall not visit again.

This giant warehouse probably has a great selection and really good prices. The problem is that is is vast, understaffed and poorly laid out. It has the faceless industrial feel of a Home Depot, and when you finally find an employee, they are surly and uncaring. Saving a dime on a bottle of whiskey is not worth the ordeal of this place.

The worst place on Earth. Royal is always crowded full of winos. Panhandlers rule the parking lot, harrassing any and all who come to shop here. I have had aggressive beggars follow me into the store demanding money and following me up and down the dirty, disorganized aisles. Stabbings and fights are routine on weekends and on about half the occasions that I have driven past, the Police have had someone spread-eagled, face down, out front. The staff seems much more concerned with the TV chained to the wall, blasting Fox News, than with ringing up purchases, so there is typically a line of angry people waiting at the register. It gets even worse after dark. You’ve been warned. Stay away.