Bart & Yeti's has been pouring drinks in Lionshead since 1975, which puts it in a very short list of Vail institutions that predate the resort's own mythology. It lives inside the Lifthouse Lodge on East Lionshead Circle — close enough to the gondola that you can walk in with your boots on and no one will blink. Locals come back because it never pretends to be something it is not.

The menu is pub food done properly: burgers, ribs, wings, barbecue, soups, sandwiches. Ask a regular what to order and you will hear the same two answers every time — the green chili and the onion rings. The kids' menu is genuinely good, which is rarer in a bar than it should be, and the beer list runs through a real spread of local and craft brews rather than the usual four handles.

The patio earns its keep at après, when the people-watching is as good as anywhere in Lionshead. Prices are what the bar itself calls Vail-reasonable — an honest description that, in this village, amounts to a selling point. The place is named after two locally famous dogs, and their successors have been coming through the door ever since.