PS Lounge, East Colfax.

The Colfax dive that has handed out a rose every night for 54 years.

PS Lounge sits on East Colfax Avenue, the long Denver corridor that has been alternately considered America's longest commercial strip and America's most authentic Western divey street. The bar opened in 1971 in a small building between a barbershop and a Salvadoran restaurant. The original owner, Pete Sansone, named the bar after his initials. The bar is unrelated to PS lounges or postscript references; PS is simply Pete.

The room is small: a bar along the right wall with eight stools, six small tables, and a single back booth. The walls are painted a faded burgundy. The lighting is intentionally dim. The plastic seats on the bar stools have been re-upholstered with the same maroon vinyl four times since 1971. The plastic is the same plastic.

Why this matters. PS Lounge is the rare Colfax dive that has held its 1971 lease through five decades of Denver gentrification. The red rose tradition is the bar's quiet identifier and has continued without interruption.

The red rose for every woman.

Every woman who enters PS Lounge receives a single red rose, presented at the bar by the bartender on shift. The tradition began on a single night in 1971 when Pete had a fight with his then-girlfriend at the bar. He bought a dozen roses to apologise. The girlfriend left before he could give them to her. He gave them, one by one, to women in the bar that night. The next night, he ordered a fresh dozen and continued. The tradition has run unbroken for 54 years.

The roses are sourced from a Denver florist that has supplied the bar since 1985. The bar receives a delivery of approximately 350 roses per week. Pete died in 2003 but the current owner, his son, has continued the practice. The roses are real. They are not silk or paper. They wilt by the next morning.

Coors Banquet, Stranahan's shot.

• Coors Banquet: four dollars a bottle. The Colorado lager. PS Lounge has poured Coors since the bar opened.
• Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey: seven dollars a shot. The local Denver distillery, on the bar's menu since 2008.
• Bushmills: five dollars. The Pete Sansone whisky.
• The PS Old Fashioned: nine dollars. Bulleit, sugar, bitters, served in a heavy rocks glass with an orange twist. The bar's only cocktail.
• The thing nobody knows: the bar pours a small Templeton Rye at six dollars. Not on the menu. Ask for "the rye." Pete liked Templeton.

Wednesday at 7pm. The Colfax regulars hour.

PS Lounge opens at 11am and closes at 2am. Wednesday at 7pm is the canonical regulars hour: the bar is at 60% capacity, the booth is open, the regulars are arriving from the East Colfax shops and the nearby municipal court (one current judge regularly drinks at the bar after shift, anonymous by mutual consent).

The peak hour is Friday and Saturday between 9pm and 1am, when the East Colfax late-night crowd packs the bar. The Sunday at 4pm hour is the slow secret experience: the regulars are reading the Denver Post, the bartender hands out roses individually with a small smile, and the room smells faintly of the day's flowers.

The bar is open every night. The roses are delivered Monday morning for the week.

What the son kept, and what he changed.

When Pete Sansone died in 2003, his son Joey inherited the lease and the bar. Joey, then 41, had worked the bar with his father for fifteen years and knew the rose tradition intimately. Joey changed almost nothing. The plastic seats, the bar back, the maroon walls, the dim lighting, the rose tradition, the original cash register from 1971 (which still functions, supplemented by a modern card reader since 2011).

The single change Joey made: he added Stranahan's Whiskey to the bar's menu in 2008, when the local Denver distillery began producing in scale. Pete had refused to add Stranahan's during his lifetime, on the grounds that he had never met Jess Graber, the founder. Joey met Graber, approved, and added the whiskey to the menu. The Stranahan's is now the bar's most-ordered shot.

Twenty-five dollars per person, four drinks.

Plan for twenty to thirty dollars per person for a three-hour visit. Three Coors at four, two Stranahan's shots at seven, twenty percent tip. A pair of friends drinks for fifty dollars total. The roses are free.

Cards are accepted. Cash is preferred. Two dollars per drink in cash on the bar is the local norm.

The Colfax holdouts and the East Denver working class.

PS Lounge draws three populations. The first: long-tenure East Colfax residents in their fifties through seventies, including a contingent of retired postal workers, one current Denver Municipal Court judge, and three retired Denver firefighters. The second: the Colfax late-night service-industry crowd. The third: a small Denver writers' contingent who use the booth for editing.

You will find some Denver creative-industry crowd, but the bar's Colfax location and the rose tradition filter for a specific kind of regular. The bar treats every visitor as a potential regular.

How not to be the worst person at PS Lounge.

• Do not refuse the rose. The tradition is the tradition. Accept gracefully, leave it on the bar if you must, but do not refuse.
• Do not photograph the judge. Anonymity is the deal.
• Do not request multiple roses for the same person. One rose per woman per visit.
• Do not order a craft cocktail beyond the PS Old Fashioned. The bar pours from the menu.
• Do not bring a stag party in matching shirts. The booth row is for regulars.
• Do not ask the bartender to source roses for a private event. The roses are for the bar only.
• Do not, ever, ask why a man does not get a rose. The tradition is the tradition. The answer is the bar.

Pete's Kitchen, PS Lounge, Sancho's Broken Arrow.

The classic East Colfax evening: dinner at Pete's Kitchen on Colfax at 7pm, the 24-hour Greek diner that has been a Colfax institution since 1942. Walk three blocks east to PS Lounge at 9pm for two Coors and a Stranahan's. End at Sancho's Broken Arrow on Colfax at midnight, the Grateful Dead-themed dive that completes the East Colfax dive trinity.

For more bars in the area, see our Denver city guide, the Colfax hidden gems, and the Denver cocktail bars guide.

Yes. Denver's most reliable Colfax dive.