The Denver Post/The Know: Olde Town Arvada is a wonderful place to eat, drink, shop and savor history
The Denver Post / The Know | John Meyer | January 27, 2025
If you love history and beautiful old buildings, vibrant restaurants, cozy independent coffee shops and bars, delightfully quaint storefront shops and a strong sense of community, you’ll find all that and more in Olde Town Arvada.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Olde Town is one of my favorite places to linger. Parking is never a problem because RTD’s Gold rail line stops there with a multilevel parking garage just across the tracks. If you park there, you’ll walk past a flour mill built in 1926 — one of 26 historic buildings in Olde Town — which you can tour by appointment.
Walk a few steps further and you’ll come to the intersection of Grandview Avenue and Olde Wadsworth Boulevard, where Jefferson County’s first electric traffic signal was installed in 1941. That’s near the town’s iconic water tower, which went into operation in 1910 when Arvada was a farming community with a population of 840.
Strolling east along Grandview — so named because it overlooks the wide Clear Creek valley and affords mountain views — you’ll find all sorts of fun places to explore. Carly’s Boutique is located in a building that was the home of Arvada’s first mayor in the early 1900s. Upstairs is a healing arts center.