WHAT: RMGA MEETING – The Broker Restaurant 6:30 – 8:30 pm
WHEN: Monday February 10, 2014. Sarah Burgoine will be our host at the Broker Restaurant. Networking 6:30 – 7:00 pm followed by the program at 7:00 – 8:15 pm with a short business meeting 8:15 – 8:30pm.
WHERE: The Broker Restaurant – 821 17th Street, Denver, CO 80203.
PROGRAM: History of the Broker and tours of the restaurant and the cellars.
The Broker Restaurant
Guide Line Review
The Broker Restaurant
We met in the main dining room of the Broker Restaurant for networking, hors d’oeuvres including their famous shrimp bowl and a cash bar. Our host was Sarah Bourgoin – Marketing and Sales Director for the restaurant. Sarah has been with The Broker for 17 years. There were 40 people present – a great turnout. Everyone really had an opportunity to network.
Larry Foos conducted a short business meeting before we toured the restaurant. With the recent passing of RMGA President Mary Thompson, Larry Foos, as Vice President, automatically became President (according to the by-laws). This left a void on the Board at Vice President. Nancy Brueggeman, as Chairman of the 2013 Nominating Committee appointed Sharon Kiefer as Vice President to complete the 2014 year. By a show of hands, all present approved this appointment.
Winston Walker brought us up to date on the FAM through old Arvada which will be on March 13th. Winston had blank applications and also accepted completed applications and the $10 fee for this event. Larry Foos reminded us all of the March membership meeting which will be held in Visit Denver’s offices in downtown Denver. Visit Denver was very helpful to RMGA as we hosted the NFTGA in January.
After the business meeting, Sarah divided the group into two smaller groups to tour the building. The building itself is on the National Historic Register. The Broker is actually in the basement of the building and it opened in 1972. The building was built in 1903 for the Ideal Cement Company (the Boettcher family, they also grew sugar beets) and was the first cement building in Denver. It is 8 stories tall, one of the tallest buildings west of the Mississippi for many years. Also, one of the most secure – the Diebold company furnished the vault which was sent by rail to Union Station and then a special rail line was built to bring the vault to the construction site. The vault was installed in the basement and the rest of the building built around it. The walls are 5-1/2 feet thick and are constructed of rebar and cement. The vault doors weigh 23-1/2 tons and are made of German steel and copper. The lock is battery operated (similar to a 6-volt car battery) and has five backups. It also takes two or three bank managers, each with different passwords to unlock it. There are two more vault doors at about 15 tons each. This main vault is similar to the one at Fort Knox.
Denver National Bank – an East Coast investment bank was the first bank here – they dealt specifically with mining investments and included H.A.W. Tabor among their clients.
Every piece of marble in the restaurant is from Colorado. The main dining room has the original early 1900s stencil décor and features a large photograph of the artist (a Colorado native) stenciling the walls. The designers were Fisher & Fisher and this was one of their first efforts. The decor depicts the history of money. The main dining room has several glass paneled room dividers to enhance the privacy of the diners. Denver National Bank left in the 1930s and the next owner wired the original gas lights for electricity. The sconces in the main dining room are original and the chandeliers are mostly from the 1930s. There are two huge chairs in the main dining room – these are circa 1400s, Spanish and were donated to the Catholic Church. They are hand-carved walnut and museum quality – acquired by The Broker in 1970s.
The restaurant gives tours of the facility at the drop of a hat – at no charge. The Denver Historical Society has lunch tours. The vault is always open – as you pass through the door you enter the original safety deposit box room. Behind this room is a smaller room with 15 hand-carved cherry wood booths – originally used by bank clients to peruse the contents of their safety deposit boxes.
We then descended the stairs to the lower level and that vault was used to store cash which was traded to the miners in exchange for silver, copper, and gold bouillon. The bank took a percentage of the value for making these transactions. There was once a tunnel, built like a mine shaft with the walls shored up with timbers. It ran from the Capitol and the Brown Palace along 17th Street and into the sub-basement and extended from 17th and Champa under the street and connected with the railroad beyond Union Station. Denver was the Wall Street of the West and they wanted to be secure. There are no records of any bank robberies out of this building.
In the dining room called the “Wine Cellar” there are also two document safes that came with the building as well as a cork covered ceiling and wine crates on the walls.
We toured the Executive Board Room – which seats about 20. The décor is hand-carved wood coins which were then plaster cast. The woodwork here is all Japanese cherry and done for Denver National Bank. The prints on the wall are of British bankers and are from Vanity Fair.
The Library is the Broker’s version of a British library and is often used for family parties. It can seat 30 at three tables.
The Study was the bank’s Executive President’s show office and had a secret access stairwell from his office upstairs in the bank to this room where he would meet privately with special clients. The ceiling is tin and is not original to the building. The vault and the sub-basement with the private dining rooms take up about 1/3rd of the building’s footprint.
A group package menu can be arranged for any of these rooms with per person prices ranging currently from $40 - $55 for a four-course meal. The restaurant also does progressive dinners – appetizers in one dining room, then a main course in another and dessert in a third. They also do themed dinners. The foyer upstairs can also be booked for cocktail receptions. The restaurant is famous for its shrimp bowl which is still offered on the à la carte menu as well as the complete menu. Jerry Fritzler is the current owner; he and Mr. Novak were partners in the restaurant before Mr. Novak’s death.
There are parking lots within a block of the restaurant though motorcoaches would need to unload on the opposite side of the street because 17th is one-way so there is no way to unload right in front of the restaurant. There is no parking available onsite.
--- Nancy Brueggeman
Content copyright 2016. Rocky Mountain Guides Association. All rights reserved.
Web Hosting Companies