This Root Beer Float Could Go Viral 🥤

Avanti Food & Beverage has been a downtown staple for years, but after a refresh that reopened the first floor with new stalls, there's a specific reason I made the trip back down — Pizza Bandit. Not for the pizza, actually. For a root beer float that Westword called "perfection," which is a big claim for a drink you'd typically associate with a 1950s diner or a gas station A&W. I was skeptical enough to go find out for myself.

Avanti is at 3225 Osage Street, and if you haven't been since the renovation, the first floor feels noticeably more open than before. There's still that food hall energy — a few stalls, shared seating, the general hum of a weeknight crowd — but the new layout makes it less chaotic to navigate. Pizza Bandit is one of the newer additions, and the signage is simple enough that you could walk right past it if you weren't looking. I almost did.

What Makes This Float Different

The root beer float at Pizza Bandit isn't a soft serve situation. They're using custom ice cream — made specifically for this drink — and everything in the glass is sourced locally. That combination sounds like a marketing pitch until you actually drink it. The ice cream is denser than what you'd get at a chain, and it holds up in the root beer instead of immediately dissolving into a sad beige foam. The root beer itself has more bite than the standard commercial stuff — it tastes like someone actually thought about what root beer is supposed to taste like before carbonating it. The two things work together in a way that a convenience store float doesn't.

It's also just a good-looking drink. I get why the video title went where it did — there's something visually satisfying about it that photographs well, and the combination of the custom ice cream and the way it's assembled gives it a specific look you're not going to confuse with anything else in the city right now.

What Else to Know

The pizza at Pizza Bandit is worth ordering alongside it. Nothing revolutionary, but it's a solid slice situation that pairs well with the float if you're making a full stop out of it. The float is dessert, but you could reasonably drink one while eating and not feel like you made a strange decision.

Parking downtown near Avanti is what it is — street parking exists but fills up, and the nearby lots will cost you. If you're already heading into the Highlands or passing through that part of town, it's easy to fold in. Worth planning around if you're coming specifically from the suburbs, but not a complicated destination if you're already downtown. Weeknights have been fine in my experience — no long waits, no real line at the stall.

The float is not cheap for what it is in terms of volume, but it's priced fairly for the sourcing behind it. If you're someone who buys a $7 coffee without thinking about it, this is the same category of spend. If you're counting dollars carefully, know going in that it's a specialty item, not a corner store float.

The Bottom Line

Downtown Denver has plenty of places to eat — Sam's No. 3 on Curtis if you want a diner, Tavernetta on the 16th Street Mall if you're spending more — but Pizza Bandit is doing something specific and doing it well. The root beer float is legitimately the best version of that drink I've had in Denver, and I've had a few. If you're in the Avanti area or have an excuse to be, it's worth stopping in for.