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Meet Steve Bauer and Christopher Coy of North Side Tavern Restaurant in Broomfield

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Bauer and Christopher Coy.

Steve and Christopher, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in the business starting when I was 15 and fell in love with it. Both parents had been in the business so I guess you could say it was in my blood. My dad tried really hard to convince me to become an Engineer but I loved the business so much I didn’t want to do anything else. Under my high school yearbook picture, it said for a future career that I would be a restaurant manager, looking back 42 years later, I definitely made the right choice for me. I worked corporate restaurants and a few high profile private restaurants all around the country my whole life starting at the age of 16. I worked for and with Rock Stars, Movie Stars, and Pro Sports Stars through the years and have lots of great memories and stories. My last position for 12 years was with a restaurant company that had four restaurants when I started with them and grew to around 55 before it was sold to one of the largest restaurant corporations in the country. Most of those years were spent on the road living in hotels and airplanes. I missed most of my son’s elementary and middle school years being on the road. After the company was bought, many changes to the culture and how we did things were implemented to be more corporate and profitable for shareholders. I became frustrated and my new boss suggested I just go with the flow. I told him I had missed much of my son’s life being on the road and I wanted to travel less. He said that with the growth, I would probably be traveling more. I told my boss that I didn’t think I could do that so after all those years and contributions, I was told I needed to think over the weekend and make a decision.

First thing Monday morning, I called him and gave notice. I gave up the company car, traveling the country, a big salary, bonus, stock options, etc. Once I finished out my notice, I spent tons of time with my son. I didn’t work for months. I went to sports practices, games, shows, and we really reconnected. I started getting bored and began to drive Uber to see what was going on in the Denver restaurant scene and what opportunities might be available. I looked at places all over the city. Rents were crazy and I really couldn’t find a deal that I thought I could make work with the money I had to work with. My neighbor told me I should look here in the Northern burbs by where we lived cause there weren’t many choices other than the chain stuff. My training from large corporate restaurants screamed location, location, location, and large size. I took a job doing some consulting for one of the large local restaurant companies. The owner of the company interviewed me for the consulting job, during the interview he asked me why with my background that I didn’t open my own restaurant up North where I lived. That stuck in my head.

One day, I happen to be driving through a part of town going to my parent’s house, a way I normally don’t drive, 10 minutes from my house. I saw a for lease sign on a strip mall building behind a gas station and car wash with a broken down sign on it that said bar and grill. I called the number and the Landlord agreed to show me the place. It was horrible. It had old carpeting, an old outdated bar, office type drop ceiling with hanging shop lights. It smelled pretty bad and had been closed for a while. It definitely was not the main and main location I was looking for. I hated the whole thing. I went home torn cause it was so close to home and I would be able to spend time with my son running a smaller place, but the location would be really hard to find. I had the landlord meet me at one of the restaurant locations in Denver that belonged to the national company I had left recently. While there, almost everyone working stopped by to say hi and tell me that I was missed. The landlord seemed to be impressed by that and told me she really wanted to make a deal with me because she had faith I could make it work with my experience and background. I told her I would have to gut most of the inside to re-create a different sense of space as a bar after bar tried and failed in that space. She told me that she had no money to give me for that but would give me a great rent deal if I wanted to remodel on my own and make a go of it.

I called one of my best friends who owned several restaurants in San Diego and my next door neighbor that kept telling me our neighborhood needed a local restaurant/bar that was non-chain to see what they thought. Both said they really wanted to invest in my abilities and would give me money for a piece of anything I did. So, with mostly my own money and some from two close friends, I signed a lease that I could make work. We tore down walls, jackhammered floors, put a sled hammer to the old bar, took down the ceiling and began the remodel. Everyone helped, friends and family. Early on a man walked in and introduced himself as the husband of the lady that owned the quilt shop next to our location. He said he was retired and bored. He said he was great with wood and would love to help build the new bar and restaurant. So, we all rolled up our sleeves and started tearing down and rebuilding stuff. The vision was to have a Colorado Themed local Tavern Restaurant that had an eclectic chef-driven menu with a great local craft beverage program. We had no designer or design on paper, we build it to feel good and feel Colorado with what we had available locally and could do on a shoestring budget. I took all my years of experience and built the place that I knew would be very social and have a culinary set up that would be able to execute a wide variety of menu items. The last piece was to find great people to launch the North Side Tavern. Luck often comes into play in business and my luck hit off of a Craig’s List Ad looking for cooks. Our chef Christopher Coy fell out of the sky from that ad and has turned out to be one of the best partners I have ever worked with in all my years in the business. He gets the concept and vision. We work really well together and I know he is happy with all the creative freedoms he gets to exercise in our concept. He very humble and soft-spoken but his work speaks loudly for him. We also were lucky to put together the rest of the team with people that were passionate and super friendly. We quickly became a place where almost everyone knows your name and what you drink. Fast forward three and a half years later the business has grown double digit year after year. Our staff size has more than doubled and we had to take on extra space in the center to accommodate the growth in business. We have won some local awards and have a huge regular clientele.

Every day has a “Cheers Bar” scene where everyone knows everyone and that family continues to grow all the time. We have added special events for every night of the week and keep evolving. We are currently getting ready to launch our 7th version of our menu. We change it seasonally for winter and summers. Social media and the internet has created a marketing tool that makes it possible to compete with the bigger restaurant companies out there and help people find us behind the gas station and car wash. The business is way more than what I had expected it would be and I got to be around for my son’s entire high school experience. He is about to start his second year of college now and he works part-time at the restaurant so we really get to see each other lots which are kind of what started it all. I was very scared to risk my own money and that of my friends on The North Side Tavern but looking back, becoming a small business owner was something I should have done much sooner. Instead of heading to the airport, rental car and hotel, for months from home, I now have a ten-minute commute that is three streets and two turns from my house. You should come to try us out, you’ll be glad you did.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I think I talked about some struggles on the last question. It definitely has not been a smooth road. Restaurant business gives you new challenges every day and with the current tight labor market, it’s really hard to find people truly passionate about the business. Overall, we understand that there will be daily struggles so the day to day challenges are just part of our normal life and we figure it out cause we are a small and nimble business. The biggest struggle for me was being diagnosed with bladder a few months back. I finished my last chemo treatment today. It was found when I became very ill and was hospitalized. I was gone for 30 days out of the restaurant and the staff had my back. Prior to that, I was afraid to just be away for two days off. I guess it paid off to be a kind boss for the past three years. The month I was in the hospital restaurant had a record month and I came to the realization that when all my treatment is done, that I could possibly take a vacation and things would be able to run without me. Bitter Sweet.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about North Side Tavern Restaurant – what should we know?
We are small and locally owned Colorado Themed Chef Driven Tavern Restaurant. Our menu is all over the board. I would call it upscale casual. Our number one selling food item is our gluten-free fish and chips which ended up on our menu by accident. People that eat gluten-free and those that don’t love it. We specialize in a warm, social, dining experience. I am most proud of our people because they truly care about the business, each other, and our guests. I am proud that we have helped many of our employees grow in their lives as people and restaurant professionals. What sets us apart from others is our people and our focus on providing a quality dining experience. Our warm and welcoming atmosphere, We are not bound by being a large corporate company that can only change slowly. We change quickly to keep our guests happy.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My wife deserves credit. At the time we were building, she really helped me bring a lot of the tradespeople in to help complete the project. She was my girlfriend back then and when I would wake up in the middle of the night stressing out or question what we were doing she would ground me and assure me that I was going to do something that was going to work out great.

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