Duffy’s Shamrock, the iconic downtown watering hole that remained open during smothering blizzards and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that closed most businesses, will be closed today to honor manager Gary P. Naffah, who died Tuesday as a result of an aneurysm.
Naffah, who spent 37 years as a barkeeper and then manager at Duffy’s, was 62.
A service will be at 6 p.m. today at Horan & McConaty family chapel, 1091 S. Colorado Blvd.
Dapper and congenial, with a shiny pate, a stocky build and countless stories, Naffah was a fixture at the agreeably frowzy institution where 17th Street suits stand elbow to elbow alongside construction workers. All of the regulars knew Naffah, who made it a point to greet everyone who walked through the door.
Born in Lawrence, Mass., Naffah began working at Duffy’s a few years after Ken and Frank Lombardi opened the bar. In 1974, he weathered Duffy’s one-block move from 1645 Tremont Place to 1635 Court Place.
During the spring 2003 blizzard, Naffah worked a double shift, helping two waitresses and a bartender bombarded by stranded travelers. Afterward, he slept there, too, as he did during earlier blizzards big enough to bring Denver to a full stop.
He measured the year by the annual events that filled Duffy’s, from the National Western Stock Show – “It always pumps up business for downtown,” he noted – to the Parade of Lights, whose onlookers and participants routinely fill Duffy’s following the spectacle.
“To tell you the truth, Gary’s more Duffy’s than I am,” said owner Ken Lombardi.
Word of Naffah’s death shocked customers even more than the news that Duffy’s, shuttered only on Christmas, Easter and March 17 (a consequence of overexuberant St. Patrick’s Day patrons), would not be open on one of the bar’s busiest weekdays.
“Gary was just here last week,” said Burt Mugavero, a longtime regular who has an office upstairs at Duffy’s.
During slow moments, Naffah read. He was well into Thom as Friedman’s “The World Is Flat” shortly before he died. His reading appetite staggered fellow employees, a devotion that Ken Lombardi shrugged off by explaining, “Gary went through college and all that.”
Another aberration, detested by servers unlucky enough to draw Naffah’s table, was his habit of ordering entrees as appetizers.
“Veal chops as an appetizer, and the two of us will split that,” Naffah would instruct a server.
“He was notorious for that, and you’d think he’d have been more sensitive, being in the business, but no,” remarked Duffy’s bartender Mike Newton, who will present the eulogy at Naffah’s funeral today.
Newton cherished his friendship with Naffah, who literally flew to his rescue in 1977. Upon learning that Newton, newly married, was near death in Bellevue Hospital, Naffah took the next plane to New York City. He found an affordable place for Newton’s bride to stay and “took care of everything until I woke up and came back to Denver,” Newton said.
Naffah, who has a son with Down syndrome, was among the top fundraisers for the Mile High Down Syndrome Association’s annual raffle. He sold most of the tickets to Duffy’s patrons.
Survivors include wife Kathleen Naffah of Centennial; sons Peter Naffah of Centennial, Rob Naffah of Littleton and John Naffah of Denver; and brothers John Naffah of Denver, and Doug Naffah and Stephen Naffah of Lawrence, Mass. The family suggests donations to the Mile High Down Syndrome Association and to Special Olympics.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
