Maybe Thanksgiving Day left you tired of turkey.
Maybe you’re already whimpering at the idea of leftover-turkey sandwiches, turkey casseroles, turkey burritos, turkey soups and all the other variations of the bird Benjamin Franklin championed as our national symbol.
Maybe you need to go to Bruce’s Bar for some Rocky Mountain oysters.
Since 1957, this long, squat building in Severance has served up untold thousands of deep-fried bull nethers.
So if you need a break from turkey, take Interstate 25 to Exit 265 and head east across the Weld County line. Bruce’s sits right across the street from Severance’s clapboard post office and Frances Brownell Memorial Park.
Chances are Dennis Guffy will be cooking.
At 51, Guffy has spent 35 years cooking that part of the bull that makes it a bull. I don’t know how you make your living, but that sort of longevity in a trade that makes most men cringe counts for something. Exactly what, I admit I don’t know.
“I just like the restaurant business,” Guffy said Wednesday as he waited for the lunch rush. “I’ve met so many nice people over the years. There’s never a dull moment, ever.”
Guffy began doing odd jobs at Bruce’s at age 14, moving to the oyster line two years later. He was raised in Severance, perhaps the most aptly named town in Colorado, and has never really considered living anyplace else.
His only break from Bruce’s was from February 2007 to Oct. 4, an 18-month span when the place changed hands, underwent remodeling and reopened. The new owner is Bruce Carron, who in a shining example of small-town happenstance shares the same first name as the bar’s founder, the late Bruce Ruth.
So the sign stayed, and the cook returned from temporary exile at Sonny’s Country Cafe 200 yards up the road.
“We really felt like we had to bring Dennis back,” said Carron, who sported a “Berthoud Wrestling” sweat shirt and wore his eyeglasses perched atop close-cropped hair now gone to gray. “Everything is prepared in-house. We cut our own steaks. As for the oysters, we skin ’em, slice ’em, bread ’em and cook ’em.”
“People come in asking if Dennis is in the kitchen,” added bartender Lauren Handley. “For a lot of regulars, it makes a difference.”
Guffy, still smarting from the Denver Broncos’ Sunday whipping by the Oakland Raiders, perked up.
“Wow,” he said. “That’s nice to hear. Though I guess customers think I must be old as dirt.”
Like so many towns within eyesight of the Front Range, Severance’s population has exploded. In 1990, 106 people called it home. Today, with ranchland giving way to housing developments named Summit View and Fox Ridge, the population has grown to 3,200.
But Bruce’s remains a fixture, a place around so long it spawned the town’s motto: “Where the Geese Fly and the Bulls Cry.”
Come September, Bruce’s plans to help revive another tradition: the annual “Nut Run,” where several thousand bikers descend on Severance for beer and the star dish — $10.95, all you can eat. If junior wants something to brag about at show-and-tell, there’s a kiddie plate for $4.
Noon loomed. Customers were due. Time to crank up the deep fryer. Guffy adjusted his cap and cracked a grin.
“It’s been an adventure.”
William Porter’s column runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1977 or wporter@denverpost.com.
