Concourse A, Denver International Airport
Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey is preparing to open a new whiskey bar and lounge at Denver Airport with plans showing a roughly 3,341-square-foot restaurant on the mezzanine level of Concourse A’s center core.
The space includes approximately 2,642 square feet of dining and seating area plus another 719 square feet for the kitchen, service line and back-of-house. Plans show 67 customer seats, with a long central bar, lounge seating and a patio-style seating area overlooking the terminal.
Renderings show a warm, Colorado-focused design with wood finishes, illuminated whiskey displays, replica aspen trunks, decorative metal screening and prominent Stranahan’s branding.
The menu leans heavily into both Stranahan’s whiskey and Colorado flavors. Whiskey offerings include Original, Blue Peak, Sherry Cask, Diamond Peak, Mountain Angel 10 Year and 12 Year, and Single Barrel.
Cocktails include the Blue Fashion with Blue Peak, bitters and a house-made cherry, plus the Gold Rush Twist with Stranahan’s Original, honey syrup, lemon and absinthe.
The food menu goes well beyond bar snacks. Breakfast options include a Mile High Breakfast Plate, Rocky Mountain omelet and Palisade peach French toast. Later in the day, the menu includes a green chile beef sandwich, short rib melt, crab mac and cheese, shrimp and grits, and whiskey and caramelized onion soup made with Stranahan’s Colorado whiskey.
Colorado breweries including Great Divide, Denver Beer Co., Station 26, Bierstadt Lagerhaus and Breckenridge Brewery also appear on the draft beer list.
Once complete, the Stranahan’s lounge will add another distinctly Colorado concept to DEN at a time when the airport is in the middle of one of the largest investment cycles in its history.
DEN served more than 82 million passengers in 2024, well beyond the roughly 50 million passengers the Jeppesen Terminal was originally designed to accommodate. The airport’s broader Vision 100 strategy is preparing the facility to handle 100 million annual passengers in the coming years, while Operation 2045 looks even farther ahead toward more than 120 million passengers annually.
Much of that investment is already visible. DEN recently completed a $2.5 billion gate expansion program that added 39 gates across all three concourses and increased overall gate capacity by roughly 30 percent. Meanwhile, the $1.3 billion final phase of the Great Hall renovation is continuing inside the Jeppesen Terminal, with completion expected by the end of 2027. That work includes expanded ticketing areas, new concessions, passenger amenities and additional improvements intended to increase capacity and modernize the airport experience. DEN is also investing beyond the terminal itself, including baggage-system modernization, upgrades to the train system and plans for pedestrian connections between the concourses. The airport has already invested more than $75 million in modernizing its train vehicles, with additional improvements expected in the coming years.
Against that backdrop, projects like the Stranahan’s lounge represent the smaller-scale side of DEN’s transformation. As billions of dollars go toward gates, security, infrastructure and capacity, the airport is also continuing to expand its mix of restaurants, bars and locally recognizable concepts. For a Colorado-born whiskey brand like Stranahan’s, a prominent location inside Concourse A places the company in front of millions of travelers each year while further strengthening the airport’s connection to the city and state it serves.