Overview:
The Mercury Cafe will close at the end of March, to be replaced by the Pearl, a sapphic space with full food and drink services.
At the end of the month, Pearl Divers, Denver’s only sapphic-focused bar, is leaving the music venue Your Mom’s House Denver (YMH). Its new home? The Mercury Cafe, a Denver staple for the past 50 years, where the venue will reopen as the Pearl on Apr. 1.
“We have the opportunity to save the space in a way,” said Sheli Gilman, who owns Sapphic Collective and is one of the co-owners of The Pearl. “(The Mercury) is almost like a time capsule, but at the same time, it’s just so whimsical. I want to preserve that kind of feeling when you walk in there.”
Gilman will co-own the Pearl alongside Dom Garcia and Ashlee Cassity of Pearl Divers and Jonathan Mora of Mora Pizza. Garcia and Cassity will run the new venue, while Gilman handles events and manages the coffee shop and Mora runs the kitchen. The Pearl will provide a full food and drink menu, including extensive vegan options, a coffee bar and dancing for patrons, with a focus on creating a trans-inclusive, sapphic-centered space.Â
Garcia emphasized that the Pearl plans to honor the cafe’s history as a cultural hub while building a distinctly queer locale. Much of the Merc’s decor will stay as well, though Garcia plans to touch up the upstairs space and paint new murals on the outside of the building. Gilman and Garcia noted that the astrology wheel and moon murals will remain at the request of Marilyn Megenity, the cafe’s initial owner.
Megenity founded the Mercury Cafe in 1975 in an “exploration of food, the arts, politics and the community.” In the five decades since, the cafe has hosted musical guests like the Dead Kennedys, Soul Asylum and Blag Flag, offered a space for budding creatives to share their art through poetry slams and open mics and held numerous political events, including a Ralph Nader rally and caucus trainings for the Bernie Sanders campaign.
The cafe will continue to hold good memories for patrons like Kelly Ortiz, who performed at their open mic as a DU student. “I didn’t really realize how hopeful it was for me too, to just get up there and share my voice and little story. It was nice knowing that there were other people there who I could relate to,” said Ortiz, emphasizing how welcoming the cafe’s atmosphere was. “I’m going to miss The Mercury Cafe.”
Many of the same events held by the Merc will also continue under the Pearl, including the cafe’s open mic nights, poetry slams, the Baby Rave and swing dancing, and the venue will also host drag shows, dating events, live music and, of course, more parties.
“We want to keep it going, but at the same time, we want to make it alive again,” Gilman said. “It feels asleep right now. I just want to bring it to life again, and I think it’s time.”
As for the venue’s vibe? “Any lesbian, especially older lesbian, that grew up with “The L Word” knows The Planet,” Garcia said, referencing the cafe that served as the show’s social hub. “So we’re going to tie into that, be like the real-life Planet without the transphobia.”
After moving to Denver in 2022, Garcia decided to open Pearl Divers inside YMH in Dec. 2024 with Mora and Cassity after the controversial closure of Blush & Blu, Denver’s only lesbian bar at the time.
While Garcia said they were grateful to YMH for sharing their space with them, she said tension between the businesses had made collaboration difficult and that the bar was ready to move into a larger space to fully realize its potential. The Pearl will also leave behind Pearl Divers’ tiki theme, though the iconic pink neon pearl sign behind the bar will join the crew at the 22nd and California location.
“It was definitely time for us to move spaces. We don’t want those negative connotations (associated with YMH) to follow us, and the same with the Mercury Cafe,” Garcia said, nodding to past labor disputes between Mercury Cafe employees and current owner Danny Newman. “There’s some bad history there, and we want people to know that we are not purchasing the Mercury Cafe.”
As the Pearl plans to hire more people for the new location, Garcia stated that they will first look to Mercury Cafe employees before turning to the outside community. The co-owner also stated that they take pride in having positive relationships with their employees, noting that they oppose the proposed cut to the Denver tipped wage and strive to be as transparent as possible with their team.
“I think being an ethical business owner as a small business, it’s very hard to pay as much as I would like to pay, but I proudly always tell everybody, my bartenders, my staff, they make more money than me, and as they should because they’re the ones that are doing the job,” Garcia said. “I’d rather take a hit to my pocket than my bartenders or any of my staff members having to suffer.”
Garcia first met Gilman when Sapphic Collective hosted the Glitter and Glow party at the speakeasy last year. Like Garcia, Gilman saw a need for community among queer and sapphic Denverites. Her niche?
“I just love a good party,” said Gilman, who is 25. “It came from me wanting to make events for people like me and people my age. I tend to gather an older Gen Z, younger Millennial age group, which I think is a little different than everybody else.”
Since its founding in the spring of 2024, Sapphic Collective has thrown ten events at venues across Denver, all geared towards Denver sapphics. A subtle difference in terminology: Gilman describes her events as “sapphic” instead of “lesbian” to be more inclusive of people who are trans and genderqueer, a sentiment echoed by Garcia.
“Sapphic to me is less about your gender identity, less about your sexuality, and more about how you carry and present yourself,” Garcia said. “I feel like I consider myself to be transmasc, but very much a lesbian so I feel like I fall under that sapphic identity.”
Though Gilman has only been in the industry for a year, the ex-data analyst has ambitious plans to revitalize the Mercury’s history as one of Denver’s leading underground music venues and late-night spots. While Colorado law prevents establishments from selling alcohol after 2 a.m., Gilman is envisioning after-hours events, late-night coffee and midnight breakfast for Denver’s night owls.
“My hope is to make it a place for people to go really late at night and have some fun,” Gilman said. “I definitely want to get into the underground rave scene. I have some connections there, and it would be really cool to bring the underground back to the Mercury. It’d be nice to make the Pearl a hub for that.”
While the Pearl’s owners looked to the future, Garcia emphasized the importance of staying true to their roots. Especially given the recent national attacks on DEI and LGBTQ+ rights, building community will continue to be their priority, and Garcia floated a potential rewards program spanning queer bars in Denver.
“I definitely want to empower all of us to come together, because we need more queer spaces here,” Garcia said. “To share our strengths and weaknesses and see how we can help each other and how we can lean on each other more.”
Marilyn Megenity, the Mercury Cafe’s current leadership and the Mercury Cafe Union did not respond to Bucket List’s requests for comment.