When people walk inside Cahoots Tavern they sometimes double check with owner Crystal Tadlock to make sure they haven’t accidentally broken into someone’s home.
There’s generations of art and tchotchkes along the walls — old, flaking beer signs, funky landline telephones, vintage glass lamps. Between rounds of drinks, customers browse racks of clothing from bygone eras they can try on and, sometimes, even start a bidding war over a pearl snap shirt.
Each article of clothing is hand selected by Tadlock herself, who relishes foraging through estate sales and thrift shops across the country. She finds some of the tavern’s decor that way too, but many are relics from her grandfather Jerry’s bar in Marinette, Wisconsin, where she grew up running around and sipping Shirley Temples.
Tadlock never really thought about owning her own tavern, despite spending more than 20 years in the industry both as a liquor distributor and bartender.
When the Wisconsin native moved to Ouray in 2021 from Denver with her husband, Troy, she started bartending at the The Imogene Hotel and Rooftop Bar and then at The Gray, upstairs at 929 Main St. in Ouray, which she bought last summer and renamed Cahoots this month. She started working there after meeting its founder, now her close friend, Sarah Gray. They became the bar’s matriarchs.
So when Gray decided to sell the business two years after opening, customers encouraged Tadlock to take over.
She listened to them, closed on the business in August and has been curating the space as her own ever since: an eclectic tavern in cahoots with a thrift shop, adding to The Gray’s signature collection of vintage velvet artwork.
Some come for drinks first, and dressing up second. Others visit knowing Tadlock will have just the costume or clothing item for an upcoming occasion. And the tavern itself has become an evolving scavenger hunt for locals, who can often pick out the latest trinket or art piece she’s added.
She views every night “in Cahoots” as a house party she’s throwing, in what feels like a cool grandma’s cabin.
It’s important to Tadlock that everyone is comfortable, having the option to either cluster around a table and play an 80s board game or shop and dress up in celebration of an occasion.
And the first thing she did when she bought the business was register the tavern as an official Green Bay Packers bar, meaning she’s part of a digital map football fans use to gather and watch Sunday games. But just like a true Packers household, that’s usually the only sport streaming on the TV. When the game isn’t on, Tadlock plays Bob Ross painting videos or mesmerizing clips of oddly satisfying things, like carpet-cleaning videos.
It’s all part of the crafty, Midwestern charm of the space, which has become a shared home to many locals who will buy and gift Tadlock’s tavern decor from road trips. And she’ll get them back, picking out items for specific customers when she’s on a thrifting mission.
Packers games and thrifted goods are the tavern’s signature cocktail, but there’s always a new party trick up Tadlock’s sleeve. She’s proud to offer a birthday sake bomb freebie and $3 mystery shots out of bottles disguised in paper bags. Groups can take a round of those off the shotski she has hanging from the entryway. She has Jell-O shots in seasonal holiday colors and is excited to newly offer dog beers from a distributor who makes a canine-vitamin broth-based brew. The space is also available to rent out for celebrations, like bachelorette or birthday parties.
Tadlock said she’s open to anything and is always willing to add a special touch to turn something ordinary into a celebration.
“I’m the person who always shows up with glow sticks and streamers, just in case,” she said.
Tadlock always answers her neon landline phone at 970-325-7295, but for more information visit cahootstavernouray.com.
