We checked, then we double-checked.

Tiki culture lives in beach towns. The whole genre is a postwar tropical-fantasy-meets-rum thing born in Hollywood and California. Most tiki bars sit at sea level by design.

We're at 9,017 feet. The reservoir's surface is the elevation of a respectable Colorado fourteener's halfway mark. Aspen sits at 7,908. Park City, Utah at 7,000. Vail Village, 8,150.

We checked the records. The Tonga Hut in North Hollywood, the oldest tiki bar still operating, sits at 707 feet. Don the Beachcomber's various locations: all at sea level. Trader Sam's at Disneyland: 360 feet.

So when we say highest tiki bar in the U.S., we mean it as a stat, not a marketing slogan. The mountains do the work for us.

Place	Elevation
Sea level	0 ft
Don the Beachcomber (LA, original)	sea level
Tonga Hut (LA)	707 ft
Aspen, Colorado	7,908 ft
Steep Lakeside Tiki Bar	9,017 ft

Section 02

The town we're sitting on used to be a town.

Old Dillon was founded in 1879 as a stage stop where the Blue River, the Snake, and Tenmile Creek meet. By the late 1950s it had grown to more than 800 residents — the largest in Summit County. A schoolhouse, two saloons, a general store, a small church.

In the 1930s, Denver Water began quietly buying land. In 1956, the town received formal notice: residents had until 1961 to relocate.

Some jacked their houses up and rolled them, plank by plank, to the new townsite up the hill. Others took the buyout and left. By 1961, what remained was burned, and Denver Water began filling the basin. The Blue River dam — 5,888 feet long, 231 feet high — was completed in 1963.

Today, the original Main Street rests 250 feet underwater. The schoolhouse, the church bell, the saloon foundations — all there, all submerged. Dillon Reservoir holds nearly 84 billion gallons of Denver's water supply. The yacht club races sailboats over what used to be the post office.

"We're 9,000 feet above a flooded ghost town. That's the kind of fact you put on a coaster."

Section 03

This is location number six.

Justin and Elissa Slezak opened the original Steep Brewing & Coffee in Keystone on December 19, 2020 — three months into a pandemic, in a ski town that wasn't sure when it would reopen. They built the bar themselves out of reclaimed semi-truck trailer decking. They charred the cedar walls by hand.

Five years later: two Keystone locations, Snowbird Cafe & Bistro, Breckenridge Coffee House, Breckenridge Coffee Roasters wholesaling beans across the county, and now this — Steep Lakeside Tiki Bar at the Dillon Marina, the sixth Steep operation.

All six places share a commitment to two things: beer brewed slowly on a 7-barrel system in Keystone, and coffee roasted in small batches in Breckenridge. You'll find the Pau Hana Coffee & Coconut Porter pouring at the tiki bar's tap; you'll find Breckenridge Coffee Roasters' cold brew in the espresso martinis. The system is tight by design.

Part of the family

Steep Brewing & Coffee Co. ↗ Keystone, CO · brewery + coffee + restaurant BCR Breckenridge Coffee Roasters ↗ Breckenridge, CO · small-batch high-altitude roastery

Section 04

51 years of someone else's hard work.

Pug Ryan's ran this concession for 51 years. They were a Summit County institution. Generations of locals had their first legal drink there. Their dog patio won "Best Deck in Summit" more years than any of us can remember.

When the lease came up in 2026, Pug Ryan's chose to step away. The Town of Dillon opened the concession to bids. We won it on a single specific promise: the food would be better. That was the consistent criticism of the previous operation — drinks were great, view was unbeatable, food was an afterthought.

So we're here. We have a charge: deliver on that promise without losing the casual, lake-and-bikes, dog-on-the-patio energy that made the place beloved. The view is the same. The deck is the same. The dogs are still welcome. The burgers, however — those are different now.