Downtown Golden, Colorado celebrates Super Bowl weekend in their own unique way
Colorado residents and visitors from across the country have flocked to Golden to celebrate their own version of Super Bowl weekend.
On Saturday, it started with an event to rival the annual Puppy Bowl. Goldens in Golden is a celebration of man's best friend, where thousands of dogs like Avery get to show off their owners.
"There's so many goldens," said Lauren Descher. "This is a beautiful moment. And I kept looking down at Avery, and she was just like, smiling. And I was like, it doesn't really matter. I'm just here with my best friend."
The event is the largest gathering of golden retrievers in the world, and restaurants like Atomic Cowboy couldn't serve fast enough.
"We had almost 900 people on our wait list throughout the entire day today," said Sarah Heim, the restaurant's front house manager.
"Our first year, it snowed, and so everybody was just wet dogs, and not too many people out," she added. "And just how beautiful it was today was just absolutely amazing."
For others, hanging with the pups was just a warmup. The Big Game is their big day.
"This, we call the Super Bowl before the Super Bowl," said King of Wings co-owner Eddie Renshaw. "It's really cool what Golden's done, and seeing everybody get together and, you know, the team here crushing it."
King of Wings expects to cook and sell around 10,000 wings on Super Bowl Sunday.
"Tomorrow is definitely going to be one of the busiest days of food being cooked and to-go orders," said Renshaw. "We slow cook and grill our wings. So, it's not, you know, your average, just drop them in the fryer. So, it's going to be a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun."
The busy streets and full drinks are a welcome sight, especially for businesses that lost revenue for several days around the holidays due to Xcel Energy's planned power outages. Renshaw says King of Wings lost thousands of dollars during that time.
"It was very tough," he said. "But obviously, we've recouped, and we're bouncing back, and very fortunate for weekends like this."
It's a big weekend for the goldens, the businesses, and the community in Golden.
