Three Years After Shutdown, My Brother's Bar Is Back to Normal

On March 17, 2020, all restaurants and bars across Colorado were closed, as Governor Jared Polis tried to clamp down on the expanding COVID pandemic.

My Brother's Bar, the oldest watering hole in town (it opened as the Highland House in 1873, when Denver was just fifteen years old), had gotten a jump on the executive order, shuttering at the end of service on March 14. I was there that night, to toast what everyone hoped would be a short hiatus before business returned to normal, maybe in a few weeks.

Three years later, My Brother's is finally returning to normal and bringing back its late-night hours. After opening at 11 a.m. today, March 17, My Brother's will remain open until 2 a.m., keeping that kitchen grill hot for all the industry workers who relied on this classic watering hole as their last stop of the night. It will keep the same hours tomorrow, and then stay open until at least midnight on weeknights.

"We've been wanting to do it, but things weren't feeling right," says Danny Newman, who led his family's purchase of My Brother's from the Karagas family in 2017. "Over the past couple of months, things started feeling that they were going in the right direction. It's wild, insane, that it's been that long."

\When the Newmans bought My Brother's, they promised that things would not change. After all, Paula, Danny's mother, had been working there for 32 years, and he'd grown up in the place.

"My parents and I couldn't be more excited to carry on the tradition of Denver's oldest bar," Newman said at the time. "When Jim [Karagas] and his brother, Angelo, bought the bar back in 1970, 15th and Platte was not the greatest part of town. But they built an amazing restaurant, and over the years, the Highland neighborhood has exploded. More and more of the old buildings in town have been razed in the name of development. While it is good for the economy of our town, our old Denver buildings and character have been rapidly disappearing. Within many of these beautiful and historic buildings are long-established businesses that contribute to the local flavor and history of Denver."

Businesses like My Brother's Bar, which served up plenty of flavor in those great, greasy burgers.

But the coronavirus was about to usher in a new, unanticipated chapter. Even as some of the lockdown rules were eased in late May 2020, the interior of My Brother's remained closed, because social distancing was not possible in the old building. Newman entered into an inventive partnership with Restaurant Recovery to set up the patio and parking lot as an outdoor restaurant with seating inside bubbles, even bringing in porta-potties. But the condiment caddies that were such a hallmark of service went into retirement, and Newman sent his parents home, to keep them safe from catching the coronavirus.

And when, finally, My Brother's reopened its indoor area in June 2021, the hours remained limited, with the bar closing at 10 p.m., if not earlier. "The place was dead by nine or ten, and we thought that was just how things were going to be," Newman recalls. "It changed over the last month. People want to go out again."

And My Brother's is ready...except on Sundays. Even before the pandemic, the bar was closed on Sundays, although last year Newman experimented with opening the bar on days when the Denver Broncos were playing at home. That trial is over now; Newman isn't sure if he'll bring it back. But at the start of April, there will be a private Sunday celebration at My Brother's: a circus-themed first birthday party for Niko, the son of Newman and wife/business partner Christy Kruzick, will be held where those bubbles once stood.

"At least once a day, someone is calling to ask about sitting in the bubbles," says Newman, who notes that they're in storage, in anticipation of a "next version expansion."
There was another birth during the pandemic, "an awesome upside of this thing," Newman acknowledges. A tech whiz, he sold a company shortly before the family purchased My Brother's Bar, which has never had a reservation system. So during those slow days, Newman "hacked together this little phone system that ended up being really useful for us," he says. It grew into Switchboard, a customizable reservation system that has been picked up by Snooze, Illegal Pete's and Guard and Grace, among other eateries. "The system preemptively answers common questions and also can connect to a person," he notes. The most common question for Snooze: How long is the wait?

The most common question for My Brother's Bar: What are your hours? Are you open late?

My Brother's is now.

"I was not expecting it to come together," Newman admits. "I am so excited that we're able to do it. Things are hopefully going back to quote-unquote normal."

Or as close as things come to normal these days. His parents are back, working three nights each; he overlaps on two with each of them. The popcorn machine will return to full operation: "It's funny that we turned it off and forgot about it," Newman admits. But Bob Vigil, the man who maintained and fixed the condiment caddies, passed away last year. And as at all restaurants, staffing is an issue, and food prices have become so volatile — burger prices went up 30 percent last summer — that My Brother's finally covered up the prices on those menus painted on the wall; it was impossible to keep up.

My Brother's Bar has seen a lot over the years, from Denver's many booms and busts to the pandemic of 1918 and the pandemic of 2020. And now it's ready to celebrate 150 years.

"All of the amazing stories of coming down to Brother's to end the night," Newman says. "Brother's is back."