Raise a Glass to My Brother's: Denver's Oldest Bar Is Now Serving Brunch

There was a time when My Brother's Bar didn't offer mayonnaise. Or take credit cards. Or open on Sunday...much less serve brunch.

Two years out of Detroit, brothers Jim and Angelo Karagas didn't even put a sign on the door of the saloon they bought in 1970 at 2376 15th Street, in a part of town that was definitely rough around the edges. It was the oldest continually operating bar in Denver (give or take a few years during Prohibition), which had gotten its start as Highland House in 1873 (just fifteen years after Denver was founded), was purchased by the Schlitz Brewing Company some forty years later, and became known for a while as Whitie's Restaurant and then the Platte Bar before turning into Paul's Place. That's where Neal Cassady, the inspiration for Jack Kerouac's On the Road, might still have an outstanding tab, judging from the letter he sent a pal while sequestered in the Colorado State Reformatory: "I frequented the place occasionally & consequently have a small bill run up, I believe I owe them about 3 or 4 dollars. If you happen to be in that vicinity please drop in & pay it, will you?"

Somewhere along the line, the building lost its top floor, but the bar kept pouring.

It was still Paul's when the Karagas brothers bought the place — "an old dump that was cheap," Jim recalled many years later. The brothers ran it for a while without any name and without much money, and when a tradesman came in with a bill, one brother would tell him to "give it to my brother, it's his bar," Jim explained. "It just dawned on us one day that we should call it My Brother's Bar."

That's what it's been known as ever since, although the neighborhood has changed beyond recognition, with the REI flagship store just down Platte and the blocks up the street filled with chic stores and co-working spaces and apartments. The Karagas brothers are gone, too; after Angelo passed away, Jim thought it might be time to find a new owner for the place, since his offspring didn't want to run it. But the family didn't want to sell to a developer, either, and in a way, the deal that resulted kept My Brother's in the family, or at least a family: Danny Newman, a Denver native and entrepreneur who'd conveniently sold his software company just before developers came knocking, and his mother, Paula Newman, who'd worked at My Brother's for 32 years at that point, led a family buyout of the place in 2017.

Paula was at My Brother's on May 31, the first day it started serving brunch. It was her birthday, but she was working there, just as she has for the past forty years, tidying the outside area that boasts the town's best secluded patio, filled with families and REI workers and residents taking a break from recreating. Danny was there, too, checking on the service while waiting for his wife and toddler to arrive so that they could go to the Outside Festival.
The first brunch was going well, with "really great numbers and a really great response," he says. "We'd wanted to do breakfast for a really long time, and our customers wanted it." In fact, back in 2019 My Brother's had even bought a food trolley that could be set up to produce grab-and-go breakfast items for the changing, and hungry, neighborhood. But then the pandemic hit, and "everything stopped and paused," he notes.

This spring, though, the time seemed right. So Danny reached out to Gio Diaz, the chef/co-owner of truck/catering company Uptown & Humboldt he'd met while outfitting a food-truck lot at West Colfax Avenue. Diaz ran the kitchen at the Mercury Cafe, too, until Danny and the other owners leased that legendary venue at 2199 California Street to the group now operating it as the Pearl. And then Danny asked Diaz to design a brunch menu of "delicious, unique food" for My Brother's

The resulting brunch offerings are "Brother's flavors with a breakfast twist," Danny says. Diaz is cooking up blueberry chia oats, a breakfast sandwich, a breakfast burrito that became wildly popular at the food-truck lot (now home to Moonflower Coffee, which "captured the hearts of the neighborhood," he says), and a breakfast burger, of course, complete with fried egg, bacon and, yes, spicy Kewpie mayo.

While the regular menu has evolved over the decades — there are vegetarian burgers now, as well as other non-burger options — Diaz won't be changing that, Danny says. And as with every meal at My Brother's, the brunch dishes come in baskets and/or on wax paper, without actual plates...but with those classic condiment trays that were made just for the bar decades ago, and which are kept carefully repaired since their creator passed on during the pandemic.

Some traditions are worth preserving. There's still no sign at My Brother's, and no TVs, either. It remains family-run, and such a favorite that readers ranked it as Best Bar in the Best of Denver 2025. But now a few updates have made it even better.

So raise a glass to My Brother's, Denver's oldest bar. You can now do it with a mimosa...at Sunday brunch.

My Brother's Bar is located at 2376 15th Street. Brunch begins at 9 a.m. Sunday, and the restaurant will remain open until 8 p.m. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday, and 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday. Learn more here.