Born and raised in Denver to Greek immigrant parents, Liz is about as solidly “old Denver” as it comes. It was at the Assumption of the Theotokos church, then located at Sixth and Pennsylvania, where Pete Contos first met Elizabeth “Liz” Zavaras in 1957 - just two years after he stepped off the plane from Greece. Save the Signs Look below the Satire’s main marquee and you’ll see a more modest sign welcoming you to Pete’s Lounge. Pete, of course, is Pete Contos, the Greek immigrant who, after opening the Satire in December 1962, launched an empire that grew to encompass nine businesses. And while that story can’t be told without tales of spilled drinks, slurred words and barroom brawls, it starts where you’d least expect it to: church. He advertised it, known then as Sugie’s Cocktail Lounge, as a “headquarters for good fellowship and good cheer.” He changed the name in 1960, swapping out the neon letters “S-U-G-I-E-S” with “S-A-T-I-R-E” when he rebranded as a live-music venue - about the same time that Bob Dylan got booted off the stage. That certainly was true of Sid King, the diminutive club owner known as the “sultan of striptease.” It might have been true of Sam Sugarman, who erected the Satire’s famed marquee when he owned the place. It’s a humming memorial to the days when neon used to ring the block - from the Aladdin Theatre (now a Walgreens) to the Playboy Lounge (now the Lion’s Lair) to advertisements for “topless talent” at Sid King’s Crazy Horse Bar (most recently the Irish Snug) just down the way.Īll told, these signs were monuments not just to commerce, but to sin in the age of the automobile, from beer runs at John’s Liquor Store to three-martini lunches at Bastien’s and the Bluebird Theater’s sordid streak as a stroke palace.įamous as Colfax is for its characters, you might imagine the sort of person running these joints: good-timing lounge lizards with whiskey on their breath and cigarettes in hand. Spend enough time squinting up at the iconic sign snaking above Pete’s Satire Lounge and you’ll almost find yourself flung to the Colfax Avenue of yesteryear.
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