SEVERANCE — Loyal customers will notice a few changes when they finally step into the newly minted Bruce’s Bar, slated to open in the next few weeks.
Not one to tinker with what made the 53-year-old bar famous, new owner Bruce Carron will still offer heaping piles of Rocky Mountain Oysters.
For those not in the loop, that means fried bull testicles.
Carron is also going to freshen up the menu with a new feature — delicious, juicy buffalo oysters (yes, also testicles).
“They are very tender and pretty tasty,” said Carron.
And alongside him will be his family, including son Tyler Carron, whose legs were crushed in a 2007 car crash in Berthoud.
Tyler Carron was fitted with prosthetic legs after the accident and now is a business student.
Bruce Carron, who helped coach Tyler in wrestling at Berthoud High School before the accident, said one of the reasons he bought the iconic bar was to spend more time with his son.
“It will give him something to do, and it will be nice to have him around,” said Carron. “And he’s studying business, so this will give him good experience.”
Jairo Landeros — whose son Nikko also lost his legs in the same crash — bought the Bruce’s Bar building last year and wanted to open a restaurant. He originally hired Carron to rebuild the place but eventually sold the bar business to him.
Carron, who owns a construction firm, decided to become a bar owner because of another family influence: Linda Winter, a longtime employee at the original Bruce’s, is an aunt of Carron’s wife.
He knew how much Bruce’s meant to Winter and to the 3,000-or-so residents of Severance, so he went to her first to make sure she would be on board with the reincarnation of the institution.
“If anybody knows the business, she does,” Bruce Carron said. “So I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.”
Also returning is Dennis Guffy, Bruce’s head cook for 30 years. “Getting him back was key,” Carron said. “No one could replace what he did.”
Bruce’s Bar opened in 1955. Original owner Bruce Ruth turned it into a focal point for hunters, bikers and anyone else passing through and willing to try his down-home delicacy.
But when Ruth died in 2006, problems in meeting the town’s fire code prompted Ruth’s son to shut it down.
Winter continued to work across the street from the old Bruce’s at the town’s post office. But she hoped someone would come through and bring Bruce’s back to life.
“Everybody was always asking: ‘When will it open? When will it open?” Winter said. “It will be great, it will be like old times.”
But not before Carron sinks more than $100,000 into the bar for improvements. Once the bar opens, he expects to serve up to 500 pounds of Rocky Mountain Oysters a week.
“It will be better than before, but a place where people can still come here for a good time,” said Carron.
For longtime patrons of Bruce’s Bar, it will be a heartfelt reunion, said Town Manager John Holdren.
“Bruce’s has always been an icon of the town, and really the region, for years, and for it to get reopened will be something,” Holdren said. “Several people from all over, even out of state, kept e-mailing us asking when it will be open. For them, they can’t wait.”
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
