Mickey’s Top Sirloin has served meals to NFL stars, country western entertainers, and Colorado prizefighters. For years, the restaurant has booked entire Decembers for holiday parties, and fans have celebrated University of Colorado football wins (and University of Nebraska wins) inside its walls. Officials from the local Adams County government have made countless decisions at the middle bar. Families return again and again, and waitresses know their names.

The restaurant is a destination and a local institution – but few people know how it all began.

The family business

Mickey Broncucia was born in 1930s in the house his grandfather built. The Broncucia family made their living as truck farmers, raising vegetables in the fertile Clear Creek river soil, hauling their produce to sell on Market Street in downtown Denver.

When Mickey’s father became too frail to operate their grocery store, Mickey, then in his mid-20s, came up with an idea for a new family business. In 1962, during Metro Denver’s rapid northern suburban expansion, Mickey opened one of the first community bars in the neighborhood. He called it (what else?) Mickey’s.

In the beginning, there was lasagne (and chile)

Mickey’s started out with no fixed menu. When local patrons asked for food, Mickey’s mother Laura and aunt Rose would simply provide what they made for their own families. As first-generation Italian-Americans, the sisters of course took great pride in their cooking, and Mickey’s soon became famous for the sisters’ authentic Italian lasagne and ravioli.

Eager to offer even more customers with the best dining experience around, Mickey hired a chef, José, who had recently cooked his way all the way up the Rio Grande from Mexico. José (now Joe) couldn’t help but cook up some of the fantastic recipes he’d learned in his home country. Mickey’s taste buds then got the best of him. All it took was one taste of Joe’s green chili with beans, and Mickey couldn’t help but add Joe’s Mexican cuisine to the menu.

Top Sirloin

Then, in 1964, Mickey rounded out his offerings with steak. But not just any steak: the top sirloin cut, which he perfected after many hours of practice and instruction from friends in the meat packing industry in Globeville, on Denver’s north side.

As the decades went by, Mickey kept grilling. He got to know his customers, and his employees, quite well. Many became friends, and some have gone. In 2016, after more than 50 years and with tears in his eyes, Mickey handed the reins to new owners who would carry on his family’s legacy. Mickey passed a few years ago, but up into his mid 80’s, you coul still find him cutting steaks in the morning, savoring his favorite dish – spaghetti with his mother’s sauce and homemade sausage – or playing the old Italian game, Bocce, on one of two covered courts he had built behind the restaurant.

You can be sure that in every bite at Mickey’s Top Sirloin, you’re enjoying the rich history of one of the Front Range’s first families, whose dedication to fostering community through fine home cooking made it the great place it is today.