The sandwich board standing beside Brighton Boulevard, in one of the more, um, interesting parts of town, carried an irresistible message: The hand-lettered words "Billy Bob's Big Ass Burgers" and an arrow pointing to the right.
Think big: There's no Billy Bob at Billy Bob's Riverside Saloon -- just John O'Brien, some big burgers and big fun.
Details
303-294-0415
Hours: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
Big Ass Burger With Swamp Styx $4.95
Little Ass Burger With Swamp Styx $3.95
The Animal $6.95
Tuesday tacos 50 cents
Closed location
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We turned, of course, swerving the minivan behind a Conoco station and pulling into a parking lot beside the Platte River that contained one toilet, one double-bed headboard, one legless desk, one box-spring mattress, two bicycle wheels, four unidentifiable hunks of rusted metal, four cars -- and a small, shadowy building that proclaimed itself Billy Bob's Riverside Saloon. I decided to park the minivan, which isn't paid for yet, where we could see it from the door.
"Hi, there!" a booming voice called out as we entered the dark establishment, the kind of dark that can only signify one of two things: Someone hasn't paid the electric bill, or we'd just stumbled into an authentic dive. Not an Authentic Dive -- one of those cheesy LoDo spots into which a chain has poured big bucks to make the bar look like it's been there for a hundred years, and where people from Highlands Ranch go for an Authentic Experience -- but the real deal. And Billy Bob's qualified: Moosehead was the fanciest beer on tap, the dark competed with smoke for breathing room, and the walls were covered with so many bumper stickers and posters that even once our eyes adjusted, it was almost impossible to focus on any single item. But that booming voice came through loud and clear, and it wasn't hard to see that it emanated from a really big guy with a really long ponytail. "Can we sit outside?" I asked. "Sure, that's the patio," the really big guy said, leaning down and grinning. "Watch out, though, there's air out there."
According to Webster's, a patio is "a recreation area that adjoins a dwelling, is often paved and is adapted especially to outdoor dining." At Billy Bob's, the patio did indeed adjoin a dwelling, and there was no question that the area had been paved with asphalt. But the only diners it seemed adapted for were the birds hopping hopefully beneath the filthy plastic tables and chairs, looking for the odd French fry or bun crumb. It's unlikely, though, that a crumb or anything else could have been dislodged from the tables, which were surprisingly, and kind of appallingly, sticky -- even considering that the previous day's hailstorm had been forceful enough to knock down the fence around the patio. While we sat and contemplated the unusual ambience, a woman came out and hawked a loogie. Thank heavens there was air out there.
"Was that guy who said 'Hi' Billy Bob?" I eventually asked our server, who'd told us she'd be out in a minute but then sort of forgot about us for fifteen minutes. "No, that's Big John," she explained. "He's a genius. He has such a vision for this place. Someday this is going to be a big riverfront area, and he got in while it was still cheap. It's going to be like LoDo. John's going to have live music and a stage for bands and pool tables, and people are going to come from all over to check it out, and the best thing is there are no noise ordinances out here." She took a breath, which she could do out on the patio, since there was air out there. There was also a vague scent of sewage. "We own all the way to over there," she added, pointing to some sheds about twenty feet away. "John's going to make this huge."
John "Just call me John" O'Brien is huge himself. His last name explains the many vaguely Irish references scattered around the bar, including an open letter from "Billy Bob" hanging from the ceiling that ends with the hopeful note that the ankles of the bar's enemies will be turned "so we'll know them by the way they walk." (There is no Billy Bob; John says he just liked the sound of the name.) And John's size explains why that enemy factor isn't particularly worrisome in the first place; it also came in handy during his decades in law enforcement in Southern California. Soon after he retired, John took his first vacation to Colorado and "fell in love with the mountains and the bike trails," he says. In fact, he and a friend were riding their bikes along the South Platte one day last year when they came across this bar and decided to stop in for a beer. "The owner and the manager were fighting," John recalls. "The owner yelled, 'I wish I could just get rid of this thing,' and as I was walking out, I said, 'Do you really want to sell the place?' He said, 'Are you drunk?' and I said, 'No, but to prove it to you, I'll come back tomorrow and talk to you about it.' And I did. The price was right, and -- yikes -- here I am."
First, though, he had to spend over a week cleaning the saloon before the health department would let him even think about serving food there. "It was most recently the Blue Chip Bar & Grill," John says. "Before that, I don't know. The last plot map I could find was from December of 1950. I do know that this was a very different establishment before, a very rough place." So after he cleaned up the kitchen, John set about cleaning up the neighborhood, which wasn't too hard for a retired peace officer. "I needed customers to understand that this isn't a place to come if you're looking for trouble," he adds.
