The Essence Of Denver's Old West Legacy Is On Full Display At Colorado's Oldest Restaurant

It doesn't get more Old West than this: In 1877, 12-year-old boy becomes the youngest swashbuckling sharp-shooter performing in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show; becomes lifelong friends with Sioux chief Sitting Bull; chases the prospect of gold to Colorado; opens a saloon in Denver feeding cattlemen, miners, railroaders, Native American royalty, silver barons, and gamblers; and leaves legacy of the state's oldest restaurant, which is also a National Historic Landmark.

Since Henry "Shorty Scout" Zietz opened the Buckhorn Exchange in 1893, the two-story establishment has heaved with the essence of his frontier spirit with a huge side of showmanship. The largely unchanged red brick exterior tacked with weatherworn murals of Western scenes blazes like an outlaw amid gleaming condos and high-rise buildings in the Mile High City's oldest neighborhood. Inside, from hardwood floor to decorative tin ceiling is plastered with cowboy regalia. Each display has its own tall tale, like the cape buffalo supposedly downed by Theodore Roosevelt.

This is the kind of joint where you sit at poker tables as old as the restaurant while digging into old-timey prairie classics served for more than 150 years like steak and wild game, Gramma Fanny's pot roast, and a ham and beans soup that Roosevelt loved so much, it's still dished at the White House today. Manhattan has its chic top-notch Kobe beef and the iconic Lawry's The Prime Rib stars in L.A., but you're here at "Denver's original steakhouse" for The Big Steak dinner. U.S.D.A. prime New York Strip, bronco-busting as much as four pounds for feeding five guests, is laced with crust sizzled from a light veil of fat, then carved and plated table-side with sauteed mushrooms and onions. As David H. declares on Yelp, "If you're a steak lover, they have everything you need."

But hold on to your horses and giddy up for the epicurean exotica that lassos guests from all over the world. Buffalo prime rib, elk medallions, local lamb, and quail guide your adventurous appetite beyond beef, while fried alligator tail and smoked buffalo sausage appetizers perk up the palate. Earn your spurs by tackling the menu's most popular dish, Rocky Mountain Oysters: battered bull testicles that Buckhorn serves up to 500 pounds of weekly. But no matter how wild things get, you'll end up in the warm embrace of hot Dutch apple pie dressed with cinnamon rum sauce, whipped cream, and ice cream, the dessert menu favorite.

If this menu is an eye-opener, you ain't seen nothing yet in this palace of palatial sensory pleasures. Close to 600 of your dining companions are century-old taxidermied trophies from Zietz's hunting expeditions and patrons, displayed all around and above. Holler "howdy" to a 9-foot Kodiak bear, rare white bison head, jackalope, two-headed calf, and a cornucopia of other critters. In between, autographed photos recount visits from a presidential posse of Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, a cavalcade of celebrities like Garth Brooks, Roy Rogers, Will Rogers, Bob Hope, and even British royal Princess Anne. And yet, there's still room for 125 antique firearms and Wild West Show memorabilia.

Upstairs, perch at the original white oak bar, built in Germany then oxcarted over from New York, with the signature apple juice-bourbon Buffalo Bill cocktail. Denver is America's craft beer capital with the best brews, but only the Buckhorn owns Colorado Liquor License No. 1 and regales with stories of how Shorty once hustled bootleg whiskey hidden in hollowed bread loaves during Prohibition, and other local lore.