When The Rooftop debuted at the 2014 home opener, Rockies owner Dick Monfort said the club’s decision to turn 3,500 right-field seats into a $10 million party deck would add “another dimension” to Coors Field.
As The Rooftop opened its 10th season on Thursday, the multi-level primarily standing-room only bar is now a trademark section of the stadium.
“Ultimately you’re trying to keep fans engaged for as long as possible, and one way to do that is to provide a better environment for them to watch a game from a different vantage point,” former Rockies outfielder and current TV analyst Ryan Spilborghs said. “That’s what they accomplished with The Rooftop.”
Other teams offer experiences similar to The Rooftop, such as the seats on top of the Green Monster at Fenway Park (you need a ticket for those sections to enter), the Coors Light Chop House Deck at Atlanta’s Truist Park (a private area) and the Hoffmann Brothers Rooftop in the Ballpark Village in St. Louis (a building that sits just outside Busch Stadium).
But Spilborghs, who said he’s seen other clubs tour The Rooftop to bring ideas back to their own stadiums, asserted that the Rockies’ upper-right field section is “the best bar in all of baseball.”
“You’ve got beer plus you’ve got the food, you’ve got really good visual lines,” Spilborghs said. “You can see the mountains, you can see downtown. Plus, I bet if you were to survey how many people have met each other at the Coors Field party deck versus (stadiums at the rest of the league), I think the success rate is much higher. It’s like a blind matchmaker.”
When The Rooftop opened, some baseball traditionalists decried that the addition of a party deck would further enhance Coors Field’s reputation as more of a haven for partygoers than a cathedral for the game’s diehards.
But Matt Pitman, who is both, said The Rooftop achieves each means.
The 40-year-old Denverite, who came to the Rockies’ first home opener at Mile High in 1993, now prefers buying a Rooftop standing ticket over sitting anywhere in the stadium. He knows that he and his buddies have to get there early to claim their spot at the rail.
“I like the social aspect of it, being able to stand and chat and hang out,” Pitman said. “In the seats it’s kind of hard to have a conversation unless you get up, go get a beer or whatever. Standing up here is like being at a bar, watching the game on TV, but it’s right in front of us… Plus, the experience isn’t ruined for most of the stadium (by adding a social viewing area), and hardly anybody sat in the old seats anyway.”
While The Rooftop has become a haven for talkative, and thirsty fans, it’s still a target that’s out of reach for the vast majority of hitters. Not all, though.
Miami’s Jesus Sanchez cranked a 496-foot homer off Ryan Feltner on May 30 last year that went into The Silver Bullet Bar up on The Rooftop. And, Angels slugger Shohei Ohtani hit The Rooftop a couple times in batting practice on different occasions, and Carlos Gonzalez blasted a 480-foot shot that went just foul in 2017 before landing in the hands of a LoDo resident standing at the rail.
Rockies veteran outfielder Charlie Blackmon said he appreciates the energy shift that The Rooftop has brought, compared to the empty right field upper-deck seats he played in front of prior to its addition.
“The vibe has changed a bit out there, and I like it,” Charlie Blackmon said. “There’s a lot more vertical action looking down on you. I like that much more (than empty seats).”
