Boulder’s Dark Horse to auction art, oddities

BOULDER — The beloved and recently shuttered World Famous Dark Horse bar in Boulder will auction off the iconic art and oddities that adorned its walls and ceilings. 

“Our staff and crew have been working so hard every single day since March 14th, disassembling, moving, and sorting through everything,” the Dark Horse, which closed March 14 after serving beers and burgers to University of Colorado students and alumni for more than five decades, posted this week on its Instagram account. 

“Why are we getting rid of things? … As a small token of gratitude, we have decided to part with many of the beloved objects as a shared goal to help and pay our long term staff a severance,” the post continued.

While specific items have yet to be listed, Dark Horse wrote on a recently launched online auction page that it will be parting with “Horse-Drawn Carriages/Sleights/Hearse, Large Statues, Antiques, Themed Display Pieces and Much More!”

Bidders can inspect the items on April 13 and April 14 at 7500 York St. in Denver. Purchases must be paid for and removed by April 16, according to the auction page. 

The Williams family, which owns the Dark Horse property, intends to demolish the previously tchotchke-laden building at 2922 Baseline Road  — along with a handful of others nearby — to build hundreds of student-oriented apartments and nearly 60,000 square feet of commercial space as part of its Williams Village II redevelopment project.

“While this is not the path we would have chosen for this historic location or our business, we are deeply grateful to have been part of Boulder’s culture for more than half a century,” Dark Horse management wrote in a Facebook post prior to the bar’s mid-March closure.

The Dark Horse building got a brief reprieve from demolition in late 2025, after Williams Family Cos. and Boulder city officials worked out a snag in the redevelopment’s permitting process that would have otherwise seen the bar razed before the start of 2026. 

The Williamses said last year that they planned to build a new 6,000-square-foot space for the bar in Williams Village II, but Dark Horse owners have yet to publicly say whether that’s something they’d consider.

Instead, rumors have circulated on social media in recent weeks that the Dark Horse could be reborn elsewhere — the former Outback Steakhouse building on West Dillon Road in Louisville has been namechecked as a possibility. Online marketing materials show that the nearly 6,200-square-foot ex-Outback space is indeed available to rent. 

While Dark Horse management did not respond to requests for comment from BizWest and has not publicly spoken about the potential to reopen in a different location, the bar did fan the flames of a possible revival on Instagram this week. 

A comment on Dark Horse’s auction announcement post read: “I guess this answers the question of whether they really plan to reopen in a new location in a few years.” The commenter seemed to be suggesting that by auctioning off its iconic oddities, Dark Horse is signalling that the bar will not be reborn. 

In response to that comment, Dark Horse posted: “does it?” alongside the open-eyes emoji, often used to playfully suggest that the emoji’s user has some juicy information they’re not ready to reveal. 

And when Dark Horse announced its closing date on Facebook in February, the bar included this in its post: “Thank you for 51 unforgettable years. We hope to see you again, in another time and another place. Stay tuned.”

Perhaps locals ought not abandon hope of taking this Horse for another ride someday. 

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