Breckenridge, Colorado: Gold Dredge Restaurant

As you cross the bridge notice the dog food for 25 cents. It's to feed the fish. And be sure to stop and do just that because there are fish 3 feet long in there!

This is a nice restaurant and bar in the heart of downtown Breckenridge. The dining is pricey, but the burgers at the bar are a good deal. Friendly staff, and a unique place to be. If you are looking for souvenirs, they sell t-shirts at the bar that boast, "The World's Highest Floating Restaurant."

Sitting right in the middle of a pond just west of downtown Breckenridge is a restaurant that is a full-sized replica gold dredge, modeled after the big river dredging barges that piled up cobblestone dunes all around this place. It was built in 1993 and designed by Baker+Hogan Associates. Originally I doubted the owner's claims that this thing really did float until last year's drought dried up the pond to the point the Dredge came down on something, started listing and they had to abandon ship! Pond's filled back up now and the gangplanks have be re-attached, and you can eat anytime there, or lounge atop the Dredge in the Howling Wolf Tavern. The Dredge floats above the entombed remains of an historic gold dredge that made and sank in that pond back in the 1940s.