Boulder City Councilman Tom Eldridge, who founded the iconic Boulder restaurant Tom’s Tavern and helped guide the city through growth and development, has died after a long battle with cancer.
He was 69.
“Boulder is a much better place because of Tom’s involvement,” Mayor Mark Ruzzin said Monday.
Eldridge, who had been a council member since 1997, died Sunday. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2004 and had been most recently on a leave of absence from the City Council.
On the Council, Eldridge was known as a pragmatic voice for the business community. During times of tight finances in 2001, Ruzzin said Eldridge was instrumental in helping the city organize its budget to save costs.
But he was also interested in some of the issues closest to left-leaning Boulder’s heart. He was a vocal proponent of examining the effect of climate change on the city and establishing a climate action plan, Ruzzin said. He worked on issues of affordable housing and on making the city more inclusive to people from diverse backgrounds.
“He really worked to make life better for everybody in Boulder, regardless of their social or economic standing,” Ruzzin said.
Eldridge founded Tom’s Tavern in 1959. Today it is still regarded as the best place in Boulder to get a hamburger – so much so that well-known film critic Roger Ebert, who often visits Boulder for the annual Conference on World Affairs, mentioned the burgers in a statement he issued this year announcing he would not attend the conference. “Have a Tom’s hamburger for me,” Ebert wrote.
Eldridge was inducted into the Boulder Business Hall of Fame earlier this year.
Eldridge’s memorial service will be at 3 p.m. Friday at the Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder. There will also be a viewing from 2 to 6 p.m. on Thursday at the First Baptist Church of Boulder at 1237 Pine St.
Boulder City leaders are expected Tuesday to declare a special election, to be held within 60 days, to fill Eldridge’s seat.
“Tom’s passing is a great loss for us all,” City Manager Frank Bruno said in a statement, “but we are a better community and better people for having known and worked with him.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
