Denver-based sports bar with big beers and bigger screens to open in Downtown Commons

Ever watched a Russian face-slapping competition while gulping down two-and-a-half pints of beer from a double-handled stein? No? Give it a few months.

Tom’s Watch Bar will open its first Northern California location in a 6,300-square foot vacant Downtown Commons space, the Denver-based company announced in a press release Monday morning.

It’ll be under Polanco Cantina at 414 K St., Suite 50, a few hundred yards from Golden 1 Center’s north entrance. Founder Tom Ryan hopes to open by the start of the Kings’ 2021-22 season in late October, depending on the COVID-19 pandemic’s market impacts.

“Sacramento’s a great town, and honestly as we’ve been building out the Tom’s Watch Bar concept, we want it to be a great place to meet before home games but also to be the center of team activity during away games,” Ryan said. “We’ve been placing locations around areas where there’s a major and loyal sports fanbase, and Sacramento met that criteria for us.”

Ryan likes to say that every seat at Tom’s is the best in the house; at worst, each has a view. The main room’s walls will be covered with TVs on all sides, including Jumbotron-like stadium screen over the central bar. It’ll also have nearly one screen per table on the expansive outdoor patio, which has its own bar.

The 360-degree viewing room will mostly show mainstream games, but all those screens leave room for what Ryan calls “obscure and outrageous sports.” That includes e-sports as well as the international competitions that sports-starved viewers began tuning into early in the pandemic: Japanese cup-stacking, Thai snake wrestling and yes, Russian competitive slapping.

Wings and burgers share menu space with lobster mac-and-cheese, shaved prime rib and hummus samplers, options Tom’s includes in an attempt to reach a customer base beyond jersey-wearing bros. Tom’s is used to the pregame, pre-flight or pre-concert rush at its six other locations (a seventh is in the works next to Coors Field in Denver, with more leases to soon be signed), and the concept is designed to get food and drinks out quickly, Ryan said.

Forty-ounce beer steins and “Tom’s Size” cocktails somewhere between a double and a triple should keep customers from needing to flag down busy wait staff before events. Tom’s will also have private event space available for rental.

Ryan co-founded burger chain Smashburger in 2007 and opened Tom’s Watch Bar across from Staples Center in Los Angeles in 2014. It was a 24-hour restaurant under the name Tom’s Urban before a 2019 conceptual renovation in favor of “eatertainment.”