You’re not rich and you’re not going to Miami for the Super Bowl. But don’t despair: Denver’s bringing the serious Super Bowl parties to you.

The Super Bowl functions as a kind of comedown from the holiday season. Those weeks of parties and drinks and rich food are lots of fun, and the end of the season is satisfying — at least until the reality of normal, non-holiday life sets in.

That’s just about when Super Bowl Sunday rolls around to save the day. It’s a reminder of happier times, when days off were plentiful and there was no New Year’s diet to worry about. Crack a beer, have a seat and munch on snacks while large men smash one another for the nation’s amusement.

And just like during the holidays, clubs and bars are rolling out the red carpet for the day. If your Super Bowl routine needs a shakeup — how many fistfuls of Chex Mix can you watch Uncle Carl eat, anyway? — this might be the year to get off the couch and get out of the house party.

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Slick, electronic retail center or restaurant? Let’s allow the food to decide.

It’s metal and wood inside, spartan and modern, the menu a mix of flatbreads and salads. It’s the kind of place that began as a “concept,” from the decor that should please Bjorn Borg or Elin Nordegren (Swedes!) to the pliant shingles of grains slicked with balsamic pomegranate glaze or spangled with crumbled blue cheese or dressed with a chipotle-lime vinaigrette.

Modmarket in Boulder feels like an Apple store. Fortunately, it does not taste like an Apple store.

The flatbreads, all of them larded with whole grains and fired in a stone hearth, are stiff enough to hold, without wilting when lifted, sliced tri-tip steak and chunks of free-range chicken and hillocks of goat cheese. Yet they have give, and chew, and they taste like wheat instead of white flour.

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Xavier De Le Rue of France is nominated for Standout of the Year by the Transworld Snowboarding Rider’s Poll Awards. Catch the show tonight at the Filmore. Photo by Streeter Lecka, Getty Images.

Let those ski sellers and snowshoe peddlers make their deals at this weekend’s big SIA Snow Show convention downtown. Denver is using the event as an excuse to party. Local bars and businesses have banded together to create “The World’s Largest Après Ski + Ride Party” to show off Denver’s snowsports culture for the 20,000 incoming snowmobile salesmen — and include locals in the action.

“The (SIA) show itself is restricted to industry registrants, but because Denver has such a large population of ski enthusiasts, we wanted folks to be able to experience the next best thing,” said Jennifer Rudolph of Colorado Ski Country USA, one of the party’s sponsors.

The idea was to turn downtown Denver into one giant ski resort. Clubs and bars from LoDo to Capitol Hill and beyond are getting in the spirit, mountain-style. The celebration rages all weekend long.

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Corner Office bar supervisor Joey Seger puts the finishing touch on a Tsunami martini. Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post.

Despite creative attempts to broaden its appeal with a million sugary, colorful variations, the martini remains the classiest of drinks. Traditionally made with gin and vermouth, the martini has weathered countless fads and tweaks to assert itself as the ultimate cocktail — the kind any serious drinker can embrace (albeit gently. You certainly don’t want to spill that thing).

Of course, cheap and weak are not characteristics of the traditional straight-booze martini, but these days — when pretty much anything can end up in a martini glass — tipplers can find one to suit any taste. The definition has been mutating ever since bartenders started making martinis with vodka instead of gin. (Now it’s pretty much anything in a martini glass.)

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Boulder-based group the Motet will help kick off Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom latest and greatest incarnation this weekend. Photo from MySpace.

If there’s a hub for the jam-band scene in Denver, it’s Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom (2637 Welton St.). Once the biggest link in a chain of Cervantes-themed venues, the ballroom and its neighbor, the former Quixote’s True Blue, changed hands last fall. Now owned by longtime co-owner Scott Morrill and Fully Tuned Productions — Duncan Goodman, Joshua Sonnenberg and Jeff Howell — Cervantes’ is celebrating its grand reopening and seventh birthday this weekend.

It’ll be a groovy event for sure, with two greatest-hits-type shows from Boulder funkmeisters the Motet. Dubbed “The Best of Halloween” for the band’s Halloween tradition of costumed tributes, the Cervantes’ shows will feature favorite songs by Prince, Talking Heads, Michael Jackson, Sly and the Family Stone and more.

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