The Grumpy Marmot

Welcome to the Grumpy Marmot, or the “Marmot” as we like to call it. Some would call it a Man Cave, but we prefer to call it what it is, an invitation-only mountain saloon hidden in the heart of Five Points South. The Marmot is a personal and private gathering space for select friends, clients, and acquaintances. It stays fully stocked with the finest top-shelf liquors, wines, and beers, including when available, select beers from New Belgium Brewing Company and other specialized breweries. So, if you are invited, don’t turn down the opportunity to enjoy a cold drink, some good music, or a chance to catch a game on the big screen with the city’s most select group of patrons.
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A few years ago, a friend of the Marmot designed special t-shirts for our little watering hole. Now people submit photos from all over the world as they travel and spread the Marmot love. To see the photo collection and learn even more about the Marmot, check out our Facebook page.

The History of The Marmot (in the words of Jay Skinner):

I’m often asked where “The Grumpy Marmot” came from. Well, the story is this.  Back in 2012, while looking for a new space to relocate my office, I commented to my broker how great it would be if we could find a building with space I could set aside for a man cave. When I acquired my new office, the building had an abandoned bunker-storage room with brick walls which provided all sorts of opportunities. My wife and I decided we found the perfect space to build the man cave.

As we began talking over concepts with Nancy Jernigan, my interior designer, and with the construction company’s building superintendent, my wife and I recalled a mountain saloon named “Grumpy’s” we visited in Grand Lake, Colorado. Grumpy’s was your typical Colorado mountain saloon with a long oak bar and wood paneled walls. My wife and I both commented at the time how cool that would be if I ever did have a man cave to build something in that fashion.

As we begin to work out the details of the man cave buildout, we showed Nancy and the superintendent the only two pictures of Grumpy’s we had, and the ideas between the four of us began to flow. While all this was going on, I mentioned that I should come up with something suitably western for a name. I had always heard that a good pub has two names that don’t have anything in common. Jokingly, I threw out the name “The Grumpy Marmot.” For anyone who has ever seen a live marmot, you know that marmots are basically big, fat, lazy members of the groundhog family who like to sit on rocks and sun themselves all day. In fact, I don’t ever see how a marmot could be grumpy. When everyone heard the name, they loved it, and the name stuck.

Shortly after moving in, our close friend Katherine Allen painted the famous picture of the Grumpy Marmot which resides on top of the beer cooler in the man cave. Her painting was later transposed into our famous Grumpy Marmot image on our t-shirts which have now been seen all over the world.

People always ask me what is the Grumpy Marmot?  The answer is a mountain saloon in the heart of Southside.  It’s “a private gathering place for the city’s most select group of patrons.”

You can spot our select patrons whenever you see someone sporting a Grumpy Marmot shirt. You can even see all the places that Grumpy Marmot t-shirts have traveled to by looking at the “Traveling Marmot” photo album on the Grumpy Marmot’s Facebook page. In addition, our most select patrons even have their own prized beer glasses adorned with their names and stored personally for them under the bar in the Grumpy Marmot.

The next time you are offered the opportunity to come to the Grumpy Marmot and have a cold beer or a drink, don’t miss the chance to drop by and see all the fun.