A proclamation honoring the Dire Family and Bonnie Brae Tavern for 88 years of service to the community.
Thank you, Brenda. Councilmember Cashman, will you please read proclamation 2020 20879? I will be pleased to. And it was very impressive to honor Brendan for his 20 year career. And that was get down to some real history here. This is proclamation number 20 20879 honoring the Dyer family and Bonnie Brae Tavern for 88 years of service to the community. Whereas in 1933, Carl and Sue Dyer bought property on the western edge of the Bonnie Braves subdivision on a then dirt road named University Boulevard. And. Whereas, the Dyers first opened a gas station on their land, and then early the next year added a frame structure for a restaurant at 740 South University Boulevard. And. Whereas, Carl and Sue opened the Bonnie Brae Tavern in June 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, and barely seven months after the repeal of Prohibition. And. Whereas, the tavern developed a widespread reputation for serving a hearty selection of home cooked comfort food, including their namesake pizza, as well as a full menu of classic adult beverages. And. WHEREAS, The Dyer's son, Michael, joined the business in the 1940s, and son Hank followed suit in the 1950s. And as the founders aged, they turned tavern operations over to their boys. And. WHEREAS, continuing the family tradition after growing up working at the restaurant themselves, Hank and Michael's sons Ricky and Michael Jr eventually took over the business from their parents and ended up working at the tavern 44 and 40 years, respectively. And. Whereas, having served Denver family's great comfort food and drink through the 1930s, forties, fifties, sixties, and the heyday of the seventies and eighties, when there was an hour wait for dinner on the weekends as Denver grew, along with more and more options for Denver, diners operating in Denver, restaurant in a nearly 100 year old building became more and more challenging. And. WHEREAS, on June 6th, Bonnie Brave Tavern celebrated 88 years in business. And. Whereas, after almost nine decades in business, the Dyer family has decided to move on to new challenges and turn the property over to new ownership and new uses. Closing the tavern doors forever on June 25th. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Council of the City and County of Denver, Section one, that the Council of the City and County of Denver declares July 25th, 2022, to be Bonnie Brae Tavern Day in Denver and thanks the entire Dyer family and their staff for providing 88 great years of fun, food, drink and community to generations of South Denver residents in Section two that the Clerk of the city and county of Denver shall attest, and a fix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation. And copies be delivered to the Dear Family. Thank you. Councilmember Cashman, your motion to adopt. Yes, Madam President. And the proclamation number 20 20879 be adopted. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council. Council Member Cashman. Yeah, 88 years is just a stupendous I mean, Brendan's career of 20 years, that's a long time. That's a long time. Before I ran for council, I spent 36 years running a neighborhood newspaper, which is where I met the Dyer family, and that was the bulk of my adult life. It was a huge part of the lives of my children. You've got that same thing repeated about three or four times with the Dyer family, generation after generation, spending their whole lives in this business. And the unique part of it is they were providing good food, great pizza, you know, but a place for community to exist and to to develop and for friends to meet, you know, the classic classic diner, whatever you want to call it. You know, when I first moved to Denver from Inglewood, we moved moved into a house on Virginia Avenue across from Wash Park. And it was a long day of moving and we're exhausted and went over to Bonnie Raitt Tavern friend recommended to go over to the tavern, get some food. And we did that. And that was my first meal there. And my son Pete worked for me for a little while when when I was on election night in 2015, where we're going to go to have an election night party. We were at the tavern and fortunately it was a happy night all around. And and there have been plenty of days and nights there since that time. And the day before it closed, I was running around too busy to stop for a meal, but had just stuck my head in the screen door and looked around one more time. And it's just such a gift for the community. And I've been I don't know, I think we got three generations as of four sitting there now. And I just want to thank you all most sincerely for for just being there. I couldn't wish you any more of the best and wherever life takes you from here. But yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot to the entire family. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council President. I wanted to thank you, Councilmember Cashman for bringing this forward. This was such a special place for so many people, me included. I grew up just a couple of blocks away and my childhood is peppered with memories. I think tonight we should probably also consider a proclamation for whoever you got those teal blue booths from. I don't know if they were there for all 88 years, but they were there the longest running upholstery proclamation. I think it should come to whoever did those again. I can see them. I can. I can. You know, it's one of those experiences where I can close my eyes and I can smell the place, I can feel the place, I can see the place. And my childhood is peppered with, you know, celebrations and and of soccer seasons back when they actually let us play youth soccer at Wash Park. And we'd come up after the season and have our parties there and spent, you know, so much of so many times in my childhood growing up there as a place my family would go and then got to create a second set of memories for me at that place as an adult because a good friend gentleman I worked with, Jeff Shoemaker, like many, many people in the city, laid claim to a booth that was their booth. I was wondering how many people also claimed Shoemaker's Booth as a zone? A couple times I walked in when someone was in his booth and he would just be staring them down from the bar, waiting for them. And and I know that, you know, it was a very special place for him and stood in a place of transition in his lifetime. And so I got to spend a lot of time in there, you know, getting to know Shoemaker's Booth and his view. So just a really one of those places that the doors may have closed, but it will be a place that as long as those of us who spent time there, as long as it lives in here, that it will it will be an institution and a part of Denver for for many, many, many years because of what you all and your family gave to our city and creating one of those special and iconic places that that lives beyond its physical doors. So thank you, Councilman Cashman, for bringing this forward. And thank you to this family for everything that you did for my family and so many other people in this city. The Council President. Thank you. Madam Secretary, roll call. Cashman pizza, please. I can eat. I. Ortega. I. Sandoval. I. Sawyer. I'm black. I see. Tobacco. I. Clark. I. When I. Fillmore. I. Herndon Heights. I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, closed the voting and announced the results. 13 Nights, 13 eyes proclamation 20 2-0879 has been adopted. We have 5 minutes for the proclamation acceptance. Councilmember Cashman will start the five minute timer. Please call whomever you'd like to come up to accept the candidacy. About $1,000 back and someone would like to come up. Ricky, any of your family? Yes. I would like to thank everybody for their proclamation. My comments will be short and I won't be as sassy as the guy that just sat on death row. But. And if you could introduce yourselves. Anyway, I would also like to thank my children, Chris and Patrick and my daughter Theresa, who's not here for working for 20 years and helping us stay open when I'm 33. Sorry. Time flies now, but thank you very much. Thank you all. Mr. Cashman, known for so many years and so many faces back here we waited on for years. It's a hard one. We were cleaning out this week and giving up our keys on Friday, so it's kind of a hard one. But my family, those crazies that are sitting with me back here, we did it together and it was it was good. Our our fathers and my grandma and grandpa would be proud. So I hope anyway. Anyway, thank you again. Thank you.