For Colorado Springs dive bar’s regulars, it’s not where you are but who you’re with on Christmas
If Daisy Weeks could have been anywhere on Christmas, she would have been with her daughter in the Mexican resort town of Puerto Peñasco.
Mark Stiles would’ve been in the Bavarian Alps, enjoying Yuletide traditions.
And Tim Ingles would be sipping Coronas with President Donald Trump on a secluded tropical island.
Instead, the three of them spent Christmas afternoon at an acknowledged dive bar north of downtown Colorado Springs, where the $5 cocktail of the day is a blue vodka concoction called “Sex in the Driveway,” and the wood-paneled walls are plastered with beer marquees.
On Wednesday, dozens of patrons filtered in and out of Robin Hood, a North Nevada Avenue haunt that opens at 7 a.m. daily. Its regulars will tell you: the lights are always on there, no matter if a holiday or a blizzard has shut down every other establishment.
“We had nothing better to do. There’s not much open” said Stiles, 51, who the night before had celebrated with his three children and five grandchildren. “I’m just here enjoying people that don’t have family around — being family for people.”
In keeping with the spirit of its namesake — who purportedly robbed the rich to give to the poor — the bar offered a free holiday meal to anyone who walked through its doors.
For nearly a decade, longtime customer Carrie Marsh has made lasagna for customers on Christmas. This year’s main course required 12 pounds of meat, a gallon of ricotta cheese and a load of homemade marinara sauce — or “gravy,” as she calls it. Preparing it took her hours, but she loves the work.
“I don’t get to cook very much anymore,” said Marsh, 57, who began using a wheelchair several years ago after a series of surgeries. “I used to cook all the time.”
She likened the bar’s Christmas crowd to “a family.”
“A lot of us, we’ve known each other for years,” Marsh said while smoking a cigarette on the bar’s back patio.
“How you doin’, darlin’?” she asked as a man who used to frequent the bar reached for her lighter.
Carrie’s husband, Rick Copeland, said he’s seen everyone from homeless people to successful businessmen at the Robin Hood on Christmas.
“You see a lot of new faces,” said Copeland, who’s 62. His bushy gray beard, festive red Santa hat and tie-dyed Grateful Dead T-shirt made him resemble a cross between Jerry Garcia and St. Nick.
Inside, one man mentioned he felt lonely because his daughter was celebrating elsewhere with her boyfriend’s family. Another admitted he’d had a fight with his wife. A third said he just came to enjoy a cold Bud Light while his seven children were with their mother.
“I’m 1,000 miles away from all my family and friends,” said 29-year-old Preston Hall, whose relatives are in Paris, Texas.
Ingles sat at a table with a hefty tumbler of Southern Comfort, a glass of coke and and a Corona with lime.
He stays with his mother, who lives nearby. Christmas has become a solemn occasion for them both.
His uncle was shot and killed a few years ago on Christmas Day, he said.
“I’ll have a couple of these for him and head home,” Ingles said.
Rick Copeland delivers the homemade lasagna his wife, Carrie Marsh, cooked Wednesday during the “Christmas Day don’t spend it alone” gathering at the Robin Hood bar on North Nevada Avenue in Colorado Springs. Rick and his wife found the bar on their third date 11-plus years ago and have been regulars since. The dinner, which the bar posted on its Facebook page, was free and open to any one from regulars to those experiencing homelessness.
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Warm food, fellowship for Christmas
Rick Smith gives Carrie Marsh a hug after she and her husband, Rick Copeland, arrived at the Robin Hood bar Wednesday with homemade lasagna for everyone.
Jon Daly, right, and Rachel Hood fill their plates with some of the homemade lasagna made by Carrie Marsh on Wednesday during the “Christmas Day don’t spent it alone” gathering at Robin Hood bar on North Nevada Avenue in Colorado Springs. Marsh, who has been a regular at the neighborhood bar for 11-plus years, made two large pans of lasagna from scratch for anyone who joined gathering.