Audio By Carbonatix
A sign in the window of the Micky Manor indicates that the owner has a date with the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses on June 8, to see about getting the liquor license back for 2544 Federal Boulevard, which started life as a firehouse — but by the early ’30s had turned into an Italian restaurant that quickly became a neighborhood institution.
And there are other hopeful signs of life at the Micky Manor, whose most recent incarnation closed last fall.
Two representatives from the Micky Manor attended the Jefferson Park United Neighbors meeting last night, and reported that the Coloroso family is working on “restoring the property to the quality the family wants.”
Dominic Coloroso took over the Micky Manor in 1943 from its original owners, Mike and Madeline Phillips. They were Italian — Mike had anglicized the name — and catered to the Italian community that once dominated this northwest Denver neighborhood. Dominic was Italian, too, of course, and “very charismatic,” his daughter, Fran Daly, remembers. Every New Year’s Eve, Dominic would host a party with free food at the Micky Manor; every summer, he’d throw a picnic for the regulars up at Genesee Park. And every Sunday, families would gather at the restaurant after church to eat good Italian food and enjoy good company — and Dominic’s generosity.
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When Dominic retired in 1976, his son, Billy took over. In 1986, after he passed away, the family leased the building to Ronnie Bay. He ran the Micky Manor for a decade before selling it to Jerri and Richard Sanchez, who ran it for another decade before they sold it to the men who turned it into the Twelfth Man. Very briefly.
In 2007, the building, which is part of a package that includes the store to the north and the parking lots to the south that border Jack-n-Grill, landed in Fran’s hands. She leased it to another group, but that effort ultimately failed.
Now the family would like to redo the entire interior, reintroduce the Italian fare that once made the Micky Manor so popular, and put the restored neon outlines of Micky and Minnie back in the window. And with all the changes along this part of Federal Boulevard, as well as the block-building planned for around the corner on West 25th Avenue, the time could finally be right for bringing Micky back…all the way back.
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