Dinner Break!!! Carroll's Pub Corner, Sheridan, CO

I've driven by this building hundreds of times, but never paid much attention to it. I'd actually assumed the place was still open as of a few months ago. Showing no signs from the street how long it hasn't been open.

Last month, I was in the neighborhood for an emissions check on the car, and my route home would take me past the building.

Carroll's Pub Corner was now officially on my "need to photograph" list.

Looking back at the archives, I found only one photo that wasn't blurry or otherwise unusable. The odd coincidence coming in that I took my pictures for this story on September 24, 2017. This photo of Carroll's, from back when it was vibrant and alive, was taken September 22, 2013.

And how the world has changed in those four years...

Well, four years and two days...

A dead giveaway should have been the place being dark and silent during what would have been peak bar hours... Also, the lack of displayed neon... And the sign on the roof now being bent and half painted over...

Yeah, I just plain missed this one...

From the best I can tell, Carroll's opened in the late 1990's, and closed in the Summer of 2015. The building wasn't sealed, and had full, unbroken and ungratified windows, allowing an easy look inside.

Perhaps I should have covered the phone number for the bank trying to sell this property. But then, what if any of you readers wanted to buy it?

Also, was it Carroll's Pub Corner -or- Carroll's Corner Pub?

I like the former better...

The building sits lower than most of the parking lot, with a bike path and Bear Creek almost immediately to the right of where I took this picture.

I like the look of this building a lot in it's simplicity, but there's the exception of it's color. Look, I get the whole Orange/Navy Blue for the Broncos and all that, but it looks REALLY bad on top of red brick....

Especially considering that green shamrocks are also a featured part of Carroll's branding...

Identity crisis much?

Recently, we had one of those rare great photography days. It was overcast and cloudy all morning, with periods of light rain. When it comes to photographing urban decay, there is no better natural light, than these conditions.

Denver is well known for it's abundance of sun. I hate fighting the sun on most of my picture taking mornings, so I try to hit new locations on cloudy days.

So I can get stuff like this...

OOOOOHH!! ARTY PEPSI SIGN!!!

Under the less arty Pepsi sign was a mobile Coors Light dispenser. I'm assuming people would help out in the dispensing from the inside, but I really don't know. No one was here to ask...

Behind the bar was a beautiful vacant lot. Paved and repaved in segments, then neglected for a great deal of time later. Paved vacant lots like this look really cool when slightly damp, with weeds poking between the cracks.

This space looks like something was here at some point that wasn't just asphalt.

After a little VR on Google Maps, I found there used to be a couple of trailer homes and a pick-up truck, on part of this area. (The date on that street view is October, 2012.) Once those were removed, a newer wooden dumpster cozy was built in their place.

Behind Carroll's... More awesome cracked pavement in great lighting... The white structure was an outdoor walk-in cooler.

Two locked doors with boarded up windows between them. 

Something that struck me as odd, was that the building appeared to not have any electricty. The meters had been removed. Yet the building itself, was very clean, The condition of Carroll's looked as if it had closed only few weeks ago.

Not two years ago...

I can't remember what that note on the back door said. And I didn't get a picture of it either.

That bright Bronco orange gutter against the red brick irritates me...

Saaaayyyyy... That broken board on the window will allow for a quick peek inside...

For a building with no electricity, customers or business, in the last two years,
that kitchen is fairly immaculate. 

Making the case of Carroll's all the more curious...

Let's go back around to the front and take a quick look at what's left inside Carroll's Pub Corner...

As I mentioned, at a quick glance from driving by on a busy street, Carroll's doesn't look like it's closed. Other than the one piece of plywood, the windows are unbroken. The parking lot is reasonably clean and free overgrown weeds. Bar/restaurant looking stuff was still inside. It looks like they could serve up a greasy burger and pitcher of beer in 15 minutes, if that was requested...

Here is the main room under the Coaches Corner sign. The door on the left leads back to the shockingly clean kitchen. The door on the right has an ice machine! I'm assuming the stove and other stuff has been moved out here, on it's way out of the building for good...

The dart boards are gone... The dust pan remains...

The sign on the roof that kind of says "tood", actually said "Great Food!!!" before someone painted over most of it. But why didn't they finish? Why leave "tood?"

Below that was the part of the bar that had the bar... 

And what is that note taped to the front door?

Well then... 

Underneath the word Uninhabitable, was this hand-written note: "Power cut due to vandalism & damaged overhead." That explains the lack of meters... As far as vandalism, I didn't see anything.

The date on the city notice was July 6, 2016. So it's been like this for at least a year... The place looked a lot better than most buildings that haven't been open for a couple years...

Making this recent left behind garbage all the more curious.... That leftover Pepsi probably would look a little different had it been sitting behind sun baked windows for a minimum of 19 months...

So that's why there are no weeds in the lot! 

This would be the far west end of Carroll's Pub Corner. Looked like a fairly nice divey bar inside. With heavy competition all around, many in newer and fancier buildings, it's easy to understand why these dive bars are failing.

Unless you're rich, this economy sucks. 

People are just going to drink at home and socialize through their phones. Of those that do still go out, most have more extra money to spend, and are going to be attracted to the shiny up the street. That leaves you with trying to eke out your dive bar existence through just the hardcore bar drinkers. And there's not enough of those around to keep every neighborhood bar.

But whatever... That is who we are and where we are at...

How about I end this on a positive note?

With that sign on this building, a new possible tenant comes to mind... 

I wonder if Ron would be interested? 

After all, Apache Plaza was demolished over 13 years ago... 

Certainly he's done fishing by now...

Goodbye Carroll's Coaches Pub Corner... 

I hope to still see you here in the future, and not a flattened triangle of land, being prepped for luxury apartmentification...

An extra big round of applause to the city of Sheridan for having zero information online about this property. You could learn a lot from your Englewood neighbor about what to include in a city website...

******

Congratulations to the 2017 Minnesota Twins. The first team to ever go from a 100 loss season, (103 actually) to a playoff appearance the next. Albeit just the Wild Card game...

Please Santana... Prove this year's Twins can finally beat the damn Yankees...

And Rockies... Try not to lose this!!