Iconic bar returns to Vail’s après ski scene

The après ski scene just got a little more lively – and traditional – in Vail Village. Sarah’s Lounge in the Christiania Lodge has reopened to the public and is bringing the smiles, oom-pah music and chicken dance back. After the slopes close, head into this ski-in, ski-out location and feel like you’ve stepped into an Austrian après ski pub with the sounds of iconic Bavarian entertainer, Helmut Fricker, and sip on a cocktail that hearkens back to the early days of Vail.

The Christiania Lodge has deep roots in Vail. The Johnston family bought it in 1976 and the bar on the property became Sarah’s Lounge.

“My mom, Sarah, was in Vail visiting her sister, Renie Gorsuch in 1963, when Renie and husband Dave were opening Gorsuch ski shop. My mom met my dad, Paul, when he was running the Nu Gnu with Bill Hanlon and other folks who became long-time Vail families,” said Johnny Johnston, Sarah and Paul Johnston’s son. “They moved away for a few years but moved back here in the 1970s and bought the Christiania Lodge. We lived at the lodge, right above the lounge and me and my brother, Mike, and our Great Dane, who kind of became the mascot of the place, would run around the hotel when we were kids.”

---

---

Like most of the families during the early days of Vail, the Johnstons were very involved in the community.

“From being on hospital boards, to building up Ski Club Vail, and then my dad was on Vail’s town council and was mayor for a while and they were instrumental in bringing the World Cup ski championships here in 1989,” Johnston said. “My mom and dad just did all of those things that you do while building a community like that and it’s beautiful to see how it’s blossomed.”

---

---

Like most places, Johnston said that during COVID they closed operations at the Christiania Lodge.

“We had to shut everything down for a while and figure things out and we haven’t had Sarah’s Lounge open since then. I would say, the two centerpieces of the hotel are the bar and the pool. So, it felt like the hotel was missing something these last few years, so, to be able to open and have people back in the lounge again just brings life back to the whole space,” Johnston said. “We’re so happy to be back.”

The revelry returned to Sarah’s Lounge on Dec. 13 when Helmut Fricker, his wife Charlotte and other musicians joined Fricker at a post he’s played at for nearly 45 years.

“Sarah’s Lounge feels like home to me because I’ve played there since 1980. Unbelievable, right? And for years and years, a lot of ski instructors would come every week and obviously, people came from all over the country and the world and they couldn’t wait until Friday night because we had so much fun,” Fricker said.

Here, people could get a taste of being on a European ski trip with the ambiance and the activities like dancing to a German polka played on Fricker’s accordion or learning how to play his alpenhorn.

“I can teach you how to yodel, which is a lot of fun. I tell everybody, ‘Don’t worry. You don’t have to remember any words,'” Fricker joked.

“I met some guests that were visiting from Hawaii, and he was German and he said ‘We saw that Helmut was coming to play Sarah’s Lounge so we brought our lederhosen and dirndl,’ and they showed up in full garb and it was just really cool,” Johnston said.

Helmut Fricker is scheduled to play on Friday nights from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. with his wife, Charlotte, joining him and there may be other guest musicians stopping by to play.

“I’ll have friends coming in from Grand Junction or Colorado Springs and elsewhere and they will just sit in and play for fun,” Fricker said.

Sarah’s Lounge will be open Thursdays through Sundays from 3 to 9 p.m. and look for more musical offerings coming soon. Grab a beer, wine or one of their cocktails that comes with a trivia question or a fun backstory on the lounge’s history.

“The Everly cocktail is in honor of John Everly, who’s our general manager, who’s been our manager for 40 years.,” Johnston said. “The Civil Rest drink’s trivia question is ‘How many mayors have been stewards of Sarah’s Lounge?’ and the answer is three: Ted Kendall, the first mayor of Vail who also owned this lodge, my dad was the town of Vail mayor and now my brother is the mayor of Denver.”

At Sarah’s Lounge you feel like you are transported to a different time, too, like Vail’s early days and its homage to European ski heritage with the Tyrolean style wooden chairs, vintage fabrics on the furnishings and cowbells adorning the walls.

“An old friend of my parent’s was here when we re-opened last week and said, ‘You know what? I’ve always thought of Sarah’s Lounge as the living room of Vail,’ and it’s so nice to be able to have people back here because it’s truly what it felt like in the 1970s, ’80s, which is really cool,” Johnston said.  

Paul Johnston passed away in the spring of 2015 and Sarah, who was known as Sally, passed away in June of this year. For the Johnstons, it has always been about family.

“As Vail grows up and changes and becomes a lot of different, new, beautiful things, it’s just nice to see some continuity, right? We’ve got this old ski lodge vibe and we’re not new, but we want to be a family place. There are people that are 75 or 80 in there and then there are people that are six or seven, so, that’s what we’re trying to hold on to,” Johnston said. “It’s really familial in that way, which is very special to us.”