300 guides

Who it is for

The same design reads differently depending on who wears it and where.

Placement

Where it sits drives visibility, pain, healing and how it ages.

Subjects & symbols

What the design depicts, and what it has traditionally meant.

Before and after

Choosing, aftercare, cover-ups, and finding the right artist.

Piercing

Placements, healing and jewellery, beyond tattooing.

Culture

Tattoos in public life.

Best Tattoo Shops in Denver (Checked 2026)

Reviewed & updated First published 1 designs

This list was written in 2016 and has been checked shop by shop in September 2026. Denver has two clusters worth knowing about: South Broadway, which has the highest concentration of custom shops in the city, and East Colfax, which has the older and more walk-in-friendly ones. Between them you can see most of what the city does well inside an afternoon.

Tattoo parlors in denver design, idea 1

South Broadway

Dedication Tattoo

1905 S Broadway. Noon to 8pm Monday to Saturday, 1pm to 6pm Sunday. Walk-ins every day.

Founded in 2013 and fully custom, with a crew carrying close to sixty years of tattooing between them. Bold traditional, Japanese, clean black and grey and script. If you want one recommendation from this page, this is it.

Think Tank Tattoo

172 S Broadway. Noon to 8pm Tuesday to Saturday. Walk-ins always welcome.

Open since 2002 with a deliberately varied crew, so the styles on offer differ sharply from artist to artist. Home of the Test Your Luck wheel, if you want the design taken out of your hands.

84 S Broadway. 11am to 7pm daily. Walk-ins and appointments.

A custom shop and gallery with a settled roster of artists, which is worth something - you can look at a portfolio and be reasonably sure that person is still there next month.

East Colfax

Bound By Design

1332 E Colfax Ave. 11am to 9pm, seven days. Walk-ins welcome.

Open since 1993 and one of the oldest shops in the city. Tattooing and piercing, with six piercers, two dedicated piercing rooms and what they say is the largest jewellery selection in Colorado. The obvious choice if piercing is what you are there for.

Lifetime Tattoo

1510 E Colfax Ave. 11am to 10pm Monday to Thursday, to 11pm Friday to Sunday.

American traditional and custom work, and the longest hours on this page, which makes it the practical option on an evening.

Elsewhere in the city

Mammoth American Tattoo

1919 E 26th Ave. 11am to 7pm Wednesday to Saturday, closed Sunday to Tuesday. Walk-ins during opening hours.

Established in 2014 by William Thidemann. A small custom studio and gallery in a residential neighbourhood, covering American traditional through Japanese and each artist's own work. Check the days - it keeps a four-day week.

Certified Customs

Broadway, Denver. Noon to 8pm most days, to 9pm Monday, to 6pm Sunday.

Custom tattooing and piercing, plus streetwear and art supplies. Artists' calendars generally run a few weeks out, so walk-ins depend on a cancellation. Note that they have moved and there are several old addresses in circulation - phone before travelling.

Sol Tribe

Sol Tribe, at 56 Broadway, closed permanently in 2024. It was one of the best-known shops in Denver and its owner, Alicia Cardenas, was killed in the shootings of December 2021, along with employee Alyssa Gunn-Maldonado.

Members of the Sol Tribe crew have since opened new studios in the city, including Cold Moon Piercing and Tattoo and Wolf and Goat Piercing. If you were looking for Sol Tribe, that is where its people went.

Others from the 2016 list

The following were listed originally and could not be confirmed as still trading in September 2026: Thick as Thieves, Kitchens Ink, Old Larimer Street Tattoo, Fallen Owl, Tribe Tattoo, Planet X, Fortune Cookie, The Rebellion, Lady Luck, Peter Tat2, Ananda Art and Tattoo, and Brave New World. Rather than send you to an address that may be empty, they have been left out. That is not a statement that they have closed, only that their status could not be established.

Before you book

Colorado regulates body art at state level through the Department of Public Health and Environment, and shops must be registered and inspected. Ask to see the registration if you want to.

Then the ordinary checks: sterile needles opened in front of you, fresh gloves, single-use ink caps, an autoclave, surfaces covered and wiped between clients.

One thing specific to Denver: at 5,280 feet the air is dry and the sun is strong. Healing tattoos dry out faster here than at sea level, so moisturise a little more often than the standard advice suggests, and be genuinely strict about sun for the first month. Your artist will tell you the same.

Details change. Phone before travelling.