Denver’s Gen Xers grew up in a smaller city than the one we live in today, a less populous, less glitzy, more gritty place. Real estate was not yet a topic on anyone’s radar. Nighttime left the streets of downtown eerily empty, and the ballpark and LoDo had yet to bring commerce to quiet warehouse districts. An abandoned 16th street viaduct bridge connecting the Northside to the rest of the city crumbled at one edge of downtown; South Broadway featured a collection of run-down bars and businesses at another. This neglected urban decay somehow provided an extra spark of ersatz danger so necessary to a constructed teen identity.

Every era leaves behind traces of evidence, from architecture to art. While the formal events in life are often documented, the experiences that shape us as people—family cooking, a childhood friendship, a concert that moved us—have no stone monuments to commemorate them. When we’re fortunate, snippets of these daily ephemeral moments are collected and preserved in archives.

Known as ephemera, these oft-overlooked items might include a concert ticket stub, a note tossed from a friend in class or even a menu from your favorite restaurant. Food in particular can be memory-charged, with one whiff or taste unleashing a flood of nostalgia. The menus held in the Denver Public Library’s collection are like Marcel Proust’s famous madeleine cookie, unleashing a wave of memories. We hope the menus for Paris, Muddy’s and the Mercury Cafe from our collection will do the same for you.