It’s the end of an era for this 64-year-old Denver Mexican-food staple

There are some restaurants you go to for the food. Others for the atmosphere. And then there are those you visit just because they’ve always been there, as constant a presence as the family members who first brought you there as a child, whose memory you carry with you every time you walk through the door. 

That’s Lucero’s in north Denver’s Clayton neighborhood. For 64 years, the no-frills Mexican eatery has occupied the house-like structure at the corner of Fillmore Street and East 37th Avenue, embedded into the residential neighborhood as an authentic example of a “third-space” that corporate chains can only dream of replicating. For 64 years, residents have been coming to Lucero’s, often by foot, to pick up breakfast or lunch and chat with both the staff and other customers. Many know each other well enough to turn the line at the register into an impromptu catch-up session. No one is on a cell phone. 

So when a for-sale sign suddenly appeared out front of the restaurant this Memorial Day Weekend, the reaction was swift. 

“I’m not feeling too good about it,” says a customer in his seventies who gives his name as Skeeter, and has lived in the area since high school. “When I came up and saw the for-sale sign, I was like ‘What?’ It’s kind of like losing a part of your past. It’s history. It’s a part of me.”

The Clayton Lucero’s is the first of what has become a group of family-owned restaurants, which includes Lucero’s & Sons on Pecos Street and two Lucero’s Tavern locations in Westminster: one on Federal Boulevard and another on Harlan Street

Founder Fred Lucero initially operated a corner market and deli in the building back in the ’50s, making and selling burritos on the side. They became so popular that he put a to-go window on the side of the store, then eventually converted the entire establishment into the small restaurant it is today. Fred Lucero passed in 2014, and the operation was taken over by his son, Fred Jr. Although he hasn’t responded to Westword’s queries about why he decided to sell the original Lucero’s, manager Jodel Gallegos says the other restaurants are expected to remain open. 

Gallegos first came to Lucero’s as a kid, and started working in the restaurant while in nursing school. After she graduated, she decided she liked her time at the restaurant more than pursuing a career in nursing, so she stayed. 

“I loved the atmosphere,” she says. “It feels like a home when you walk in here. It looks like a home. People come in, and I already know what they want to eat.”

As manager, Gallegos has gotten to know the regulars as more than just customers: They’re friends and, to a degree, family. The north wall of the interior is covered with six large poster frames filled with a collage of faded photos of customers over the years. Gallegos has a story for almost all of them.

One is a photo of an old man holding a saxophone, who would come in and play for Fred Sr. every year on his birthday, she says. Another is a woman with a boy in a football uniform, who would bring in her son’s team on Saturdays after games. 

“Saturday was my favorite day, because we had all the kids coming in,” she says, a slight choke of emotion in her voice. 

Since the for-sale sign appeared, Gallegos says she’s fielded calls from customers daily, all day,  asking what’s going to happen to the space. She doesn’t have an answer. For now, the restaurant will remain open while the sale process runs its course, which could take weeks or even months. 

But customers know that when that process is over, Lucero’s will be gone, with no guarantee of who or what will take its place. That fear, that uncertainty, resonates in the eyes of every customer walking past the for-sale sign on their way in. And while the line at the register may stack up four to six deep, the spiritual line wraps around the block for generations representing the parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents who have stood in that line. 

“It’s like an extended family here,” says Courtney Riley. She’s 36 now, but has been coming to Lucero’s since she was two. “Moms, dads, grandparents… everybody. I’m gonna miss this place.”

Lucero’s is located at 3657 Fillmore St. and is open from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.Monday through Saturday.