The Cherry Cricket
2641 E. Second Avenue
Denver, CO 80206
Phone: 303-322-7666
Website: http://www.cherrycricket.com/
Categories: Restaurants & Bars
The History of The Cricket as told by Eli McGuire
"After the war, Mary Zimmerman gave her husband the boot and opened the original Cherry Cricket as Mary Zimmerman's Bar in 1945. The bar was actually the living room of her home which was where the Sears Auto Center is now. Her customers were mainly garbage truck drivers working at the Denver dump buried beneath the old Cherry Creek Mall site.
Around 1950, Zimmerman purchased the property at 2nd and Clayton where she constructed the building that is now the Cricket's main dining room. Over the years she added to that structure, increasing its size little by little.
Historical details from the time of her death, about 1960 to 1965 are a little sketchy, but it has been heard that Napoleon the barber next door owned the bar twice. At the end of his second stint in 1965, he sold it to Bernard Duffy. This is the same Duffy who owned Duffy's in downtown Denver. No one seems to know whether Duffy named the bar the Cherry Cricket or whether the moniker was adopted after Mary's death. Duffy did build the neon sign that now graces the front of the bar.
Duffy moved the original oval bar from the center of the room to its present location on the west wall. The Cricket was renowned for its lunch-time prime rib buffet costing only $2.50. Duffy had his own bourbon and scotch labels and was reported to be a very stingy bartender. A drink on the house was a rarity. Duffy retired in 1972 and sold the bar.
As youngsters, the owners had acquired quite a collection of sports memorabilia and they displayed it lavishly throughout the bar, making it one of Denver's first sports bars. The place was hugely popular for many years.
When my husband and I bought the bar in 1990, it was in terrible shape. The the previous owners had stopped maintaining it and The Cricket was known for snarly waitresses and Cherry Creek's only organized, round-the-clock bug parade.
Since I gave my husband the boot in 1991, the business has grown six-fold. Little by little, we've added new walk-in beer coolers, a new air-conditioning system and two new bathrooms. We have replaced the old bar twice and I have fixed everything else in the place no less than four times. Instead of the garbage truck drivers, my most loyal customers are mail men and my staff and I are still working to fulfill our original mission. To make The Cherry Cricket a great neighborhood bar and restaurant."
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