Guests from Boulder, aka 'Old Abe people'

As they are also children of God, they shall go un-named in this tome, to protect them – from scorn, from ridicule, from the certain disdain and disparagement normal people would heap upon them if they knew them and suffered their eccentricities and outlandishness’s as we have. Nor will I single out the best or worst of them; some of these multi-named guests (for example, but pseudonymically, Laura Moon-Child Temple Bluebird, and I won’t say if she was on the best or worst list), while deserving of a full chapter in this book, detailing their oddities and assaults on normalcy, will quietly and respectfully flow into the pools and eddies of what makes Boulder…….. Boulder.

Boulder, CO can simply and adequately be defined as “24 square miles surrounded by reality.” As the suspected but undefined magnetic power field of the Bermuda Triangle so surreptitiously draws in unsuspecting airplanes and ships, the force of Boulder seeks out and sucks in, from all over the civilized world, the weird, the green, the soy-obsessed/gluten intolerant, the radically vegan, the granola crunching, the humorless, the intellectually arrogant liberal East-Coast Ivy-League rejects, the Allen Ginsburg look-alike, aging hippies who refuse to accept that they’ve aged and the hippie-thing really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be – (certainly not as it’s carried into old age), and variations and agglomerations of all of the aforementioned. Boulder is a beacon for all that live on the fringe, providing a safe haven where they can be amongst those with similar neurosis, and experience a sense of normalcy that isn’t available to them anywhere else in the civilized world. Twenty-four square-miles surrounded by reality.

Having exposed all of these truths, it is important to note that a large percentage of our guests are from Boulder, and they love The Riverside, (or loved the old Abe-owned Riverside) because it so typifies the fringe of what is acceptable as a hostelry. It’s old, it’s eclectic, it’s funky, it’s, it’s…..IT’S SO BOULDER. Or at least it used to be so Boulder. We constantly have to defend ourselves personally (we’re not ultra-liberal, vegan, 60’s radicals, native Coloradans) as well as the improvements we’ve made to the hotel and restaurant to those who we refer to as “old Abe people”, i.e. loyal customers of Abe’s.

Abe had three types of customers: 1) those that liked and patronized the place because of Abe; 2) those that liked the place and patronized it in spite of Abe, and; 3) those that liked the place but never came back because of Abe. If you put percentages on that clientele, my guess is it’s 10% for the first group, 20% for the second, and the remaining 70% we’re trying to recover and win over. Abe’s catering to and relying upon that loyal 10% was the reason for his winding up broke, broke, and broker. (Editor’s note: One of Abe’s best customers is now one of ours; he is an exception to the rule. He loves what we’ve done with the place, joins us regularly, and is a pleasure to have in our house. However, there is no denying the fact that he is indeed, a character; that trait alone makes him a welcome fixture to The Riverside. I don’t believe he is actually from Boulder proper, but should he want the position, he could be elected Mayor.)


I get one of these calls weekly.

“Are you the new owner?”

“Yes, along with the bank”

“What happened to Abe?”

“He sold us the hotel two years ago and moved to Englewood.”

“Oh, we just loved Abe. We miss him so!”

“Wait a minute. You loved Abe, you miss him so, but you haven’t stayed here for two years, and you didn’t even know that he was gone?”

“Well, mostly we stayed at the hot springs, because the Riverside was a dump. But we loved Abe. He was such a character!! Do you have any rooms available this weekend, and do you still take pets?”

“I have some queen rooms that we allow for pet owners. What type of pets?”

“Oh, we have four pit-bulls. The two females are in heat, and the males are fresh from a fight, but they’re small for their breed. But Abe always let us bring our dogs.”

“Sorry, but single dogs, less than 30 pounds.”

“OK, well how much are the rooms?”

“Queen Rooms are $76 plus tax.”

“WOW. $76 dollars? You’ve raised the rates!!!”

“Yes. We’ve made some improvements – new beds, new sheets, light bulbs that actually work, toilets that flush – and these things cost money, but I think you’ll find the place a little more welcoming. Oh, and other stuff has gotten more expensive since you last stayed here in 1994 for $35. Electricity, water, gas, you know, the stuff that puts this place a step above camping out.”

“Oh my!! Please don’t tell me you got rid of the mismatched, paisley, loud-striped, cartoon-character sheets. They gave the place such a unique feel.”

“Well, unfortunately we did. They were, uh, threadbare, and to quantify them as acceptable bed sheets, we would have had to develop a new process for thread grafting. We found it cheaper to buy nice, new, white high thread count sheets. They’re really comfortable. You should try them at your home.”

“Oh, that’s what we have at our home. But I’ll miss those old sheets. Do you still have the restaurant? Abe’s food was so good!”

“We have a very nice restaurant, and I think the food is as good as or better than what Abe used to serve.”

“We loved the old chalk board menu. Do you still use that?”

“No, we have a paper menu, and in most cases, we have all of the stuff available that’s on the menu.”

“We loved the way Abe used to be out of everything and he’d yell at us and tell us what we were going to eat, whether we liked it or not.”

“I think there are still restaurants in Hell where you can get that experience.”

“We’re gluten-intolerant vegan soy-addicts, and no ice in our water!!!! Can you accommodate our needs?”

“Wait a minute! Abe served trout, steak or Cornish Game hens with Spanish rice. What part of that accommodated your diet??”

And so it goes. Weekly I get these calls from Boulder-ites. They usually end up giving us a try, arriving late in the day in their late-model, bumper-sticker laden (COEXIST, Impeach Bush, Go Green, blah, blah, blah) Subaru’s, ready for a soak, a meal and a bed.
We bend over backwards to try and win them over. In most cases, we do. But this goes back to the fact that The Riverside is exceptional because it is The Riverside. It’s not about us, our personalities or our politics. It’s not about comfortable beds and new sheets. It’s not about whether you’re from Boulder, CO or Shawnee, KS. All you need to ‘get The Riverside’ is a heart, a soul and an appreciation and understanding of what makes life unique and special. Twenty-four square miles, surrounded by reality, is Boulder, Co; and fortunately for us, it’s loaded with people that get it.