Happy Friday: Here's a good place to find a date

If you're sick of online dating or tired of having your friends hook you up with their single friends, only to eventually question their judgment of your personality, here's a suggestion: Why not go out and meet people the old-fashioned way? And we're not talking about putting on the beer goggles and then going home with the first person who will have you.

In the Best of Denver 2011, we named Common Grounds the Best Coffeehouse for Finding a Date, because it's always full of attractive young professionals, who are forced to share tables and mingle over sugar and cream -- which makes taking the next step and setting up a romantic meeting much less intimidating.

But Denver has many more places conducive to remance. So every Friday, we'll reveal a spot in town where the pickings are good -- and the asking out is easy. Our first recommendation? Happy hour at Lola.

Since we're the kind of people who like to go to bars, we've got no aversion to meeting people in bars. The best way to do this, though, is to pick the right place and go during happy hour, before most people have had the opportunity to get black-out drunk and start stumbling (and the ones who have reached that point are, well, probably not keepers).

Lola's happy hour is particularly conducive to meeting new people because the restaurant cordons off the narrow bar area, forcing groups of friends to cram into small spaces. And if your group of friends posts up to a group of friends that happens to contain someone you find attractive (which is basically a given, since it's an attractive, young professional group that favors this spot), it's not difficult to strike up a conversation while you're waiting to order a margarita.

Bam. Digits before 6 p.m.