I was somewhere last year and I was reading an article about a little tavern in a small Colorado town having a great burger. I looked up on Google maps to see where Sedalia, CO was and found that it really wasn't that far south of Denver. I was going to be on the south side of Denver for a few days for a trade show last October and I thought it would be kind of fun heading down to this place for a burger. Along with a colleague who had gotten into Denver early in the day like me, we went down to have a burger at Bud's Cafe and Bar.
Except, hardly anyone calls the place by its full name - it's simply known as Bud's Bar to many of the patrons who have come to the place over the past 60+ years. There was a Bud - Calixte "Bud" Hebert - a Denver native who contracted polio as a child. He tried to enter the service after studying journalism at Colorado State, but he was denied because of his earlier polio condition. He joined the Civil Service and was stationed at Pearl Harbor as a torch cutter working on ships. Hebert was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked the base on Dec. 7, 1941. Surviving the attack, Hebert ended up staying at Pearl Harbor for the duration of the war working on ships.
After the war ended, Hebert returned to Denver and was looking to do something that was in line with his experience with all things mechanical. He ended up buying a small garage in Sedalia - Herman's Garage. The garage was slowly failing as more work was going to Denver just up the road. But being a budding (Get it? I know. GROAN...) entrepreneur Bud sensed that the small town of Sedalia needed a roadhouse-type of establishment. He renovated the old garage, put in a small counter with a few tables. The kitchen was small - the grill was only large enough to cook four hamburgers at a time - and there was no room for a fryer. He opened Bud's Cafe and Bar in 1948.
Bud Hebert's little bar turned into the unofficial town hall of Sedalia and he was called upon many times by locals who had a dispute that needed to be settled. Hebert's arbitration skills at the bar were well-noted, so much so that in 1964 he was elected as a judge for Douglas County just south of Denver.
Hebert's wife, Helen, had passed away that same year. The death of his wife, coupled with being a sitting judge at the county level, convinced Hebert that he had to sell his bar. He didn't think that the owner of a bar should be a sitting judge and he turned to one of the bar's part-time workers to buy the place from him, Therman Thompson.
(As an aside, Bud Hebert served as the Douglas County judge until his retirement in 1976. A couple three years later, he met Rosemary Canham. Canham grew up in Rock Island, IL and was living in Dubuque when her husband passed away in 1977. Rosemary and Bud were married in 1980 and ended up moving to Davenport, IA in 1992 to be closer to Rosemary's daughter. Bud passed away in Davenport in 2000 at the age of 87. Rosemary, who was a renown singer earlier in her life, lived to be 100, passing away in Davenport in 2015.)
Other than working for Bud Hebert part-time for 9 years, Therman Thompson really didn't have much experience in running a bar. A former Navy veteran, Thompson worked for the nearby Louviers Dynamite works, a DuPont-owned facility that produced over 1 billion pounds of dynamite over a 60-plus year period starting in 1908. When dynamite production began to wane in the early 60's, Thompson jumped at the chance to buy the bar from Bud Hebert.
Over the years, Thompson, and his wife, Mary Anne, transformed Bud's Bar into more of a social meeting place and not one where disputes between local residents were resolved. Not only were the burgers good and the beer cold, but the locals would meet to discuss various local, state and national topics. Some people - thinking that Thompson was the "Bud" of Bud's Bar - started to call him by that nickname. He never corrected them and after awhile he became "Bud Thompson". Good-natured, self-deprecating and the willing recipient of the butt of jokes from friendly patrons, Thompson ran Bud's Bar for 40 years.
Thompson loved to fly-fish up in Wyoming's Miracle Mile area along the North Platte River. A fishing buddy by the name of Mike Steerman was with Thompson on a fishing trip in Wyoming in 2004 when Thompson said that health concerns were going to force him to sell the bar. After talking it over with Steerman during the trip, Thompson sold Bud's Bar to Steerman who had to promise that he wouldn't change a thing to the place. (Therman Thompson entered a nursing home in early 2005 and passed away in 2008.)
Actually, Steerman had to break that promise almost immediately. The floor to Bud's Bar was scuffed and worn out from years of wear and tear (including a few times local ranchers would ride their horses into the bar to play tricks on Bud Hebert) and he had to replace it. Even though it looked just like a new version of the old wooden floor, Steerman thought it didn't fit in with the Western/Rancher decor that Hebert and Thompson had accumulated over the years. It wasn't until a local rancher came in with a hot branding iron and seared his ranch's brand into the floor that Steerman felt that the place was returning to its old character.
Mike Steerman continues to run Bud's Bar to this day. Thanks to some national press over the years, lines to get into the place to try one of their burgers will sometime run down the street. We were lucky the day we went - it was a weekday around 1:30 when we got in there and we were able to get in immediately.
It was about a 20 minute drive down from the Tech Center area on Denver's far south side where we were staying to Sedalia which sits just off U.S. 85. We pulled into town and literally drove through the place before we realized that we must have passed Bud's Bar. We ended up circling back and found Bud's on the west side of Manhart Street in between two sets of railroad tracks. (see map) A diagonal parking spot was open just down the street from Bud's and we took that.
Bud's isn't very big, the stone-facade building features a small dining/bar area that had booths along one side, the small bar with a knotty pine front opposite that with a number of tables in the middle of the space. The walls were adorned with pictures, beer signs and a large flat screen television on the back wall.
The kitchen area behind the bar is only big enough for a small grill and has no room for a fryer. That's why the menu at Bud's Cafe and Bar features only burgers - single or double hamburgers, or single or double cheeseburgers. "No French Fries, Damnit!" is prominently displayed on the bottom of the menu. And you won't find craft or imported beers at Bud's - only the regular domestic heavyweights are offered.
While there was a lot of beer memorabilia on the wall, I had to take a closer look at a number of prints that were on the back wall of the dining room. The Coors Collection, a series of paintings commissioned by the Coors Brewing Company outside of Denver, depicts a number of scenes involving cowboys. Western Americana artist Gordon Snidow is the man behind the series of paintings who drew a total of 15 of them in the 70's and 80's. These were obviously reprints, but the detail in each painting was rather remarkable.
My colleague and I settled into a table toward the back of the room and took a quick look at the menu. We both ordered up double cheeseburgers and a beer. We were told that a small bag of potato chips came with the burgers. Pickles and onions come on the side with the burgers at Bud's Cafe.
The burger was delivered to the table in a plain plastic basket with wax paper. The burgers are flat-grilled and I'm sure that grill has years of seasoning on it giving the burgers a distinctive taste quality. They use a mix of 80-20 ground beef in the burgers and just before they serve them up, they put the burgers on the buns and cover them on the grill to make the bun even more soft.
Bud's double cheeseburger was oozing with cheese placed on top of both patties. And the taste was absolutely delicious. The bun was pretty basic, but held together well with the juiciness and the cheesy nature of the burger. The onions were fresh and very forward in taste, but not so overpowering that it killed the overall great taste of the burger. It was one of those burgers where I went "Mmmmm....." as I took my first bite.
I love little places like Bud's Cafe and Bar, especially ones that are pretty simple and down home in their nature. They only do one thing at Bud's - burgers - and they do them pretty damn well. It's nothing fancy, don't expect to see a big craft beer list, and there may be people waiting out the door to get in to get a burger on weekends. For over 70 years, Bud's Cafe and Bar has been serving thousands who have made the trip to Sedalia. And I'm pretty sure no one has left disappointed.
There is failure to mention Anne Mae Thompson. She was Therman Thomason’s wife before MaryAnn. She was raising three young daughters. She was taking in laundry and working for Bud to put food on the table. She was divorced from her husband, Bud Swan. The house she lived in was paid off. She went to. Work for Bud Hebert. She met and married Therman. It was then in she used her home for collatoral to purchase “Buds Bar”. Anne developed lymphoma and passed away. During her battle Therman developed a “relationship with Maryann. Anne knew of his infidelity. She said “I wish I would have never put his name on anything”.Why to this day Therman Thompson is idolized I’ll never understand. I am a daughter of Anne Mae. It disgusts me to read articles such as yours. Do your research.
Posted by: Helen Funk | March 27, 2024 at 12:33 PM
Sorry, Helen, but I did do research on this and there was no mention Anne Mae Thompson in any of the articles or sites that I found on Bud's Bar. Sorry there's still a sour taste in your mouth on this.
Posted by: Road Tips | March 28, 2024 at 01:25 PM