PUEBLO • Dean Gray knows exactly where his hometown’s signature dish was born.
“You can pretty much go to any restaurant in Pueblo and get a slopper,” he says, “but we’re the ones that originated it.”
By we, he means the joint his family has owned for nearly 40 years, Gray’s Coors Tavern, previously Johnnie’s Coors Tavern when it opened in 1934. The tavern has been called an institution and landmark, a place where locals and visitors converge for a schooner of beer the bowl-shaped glass associated with margaritas and a burger submerged in green chili.
Bartenders celebrate newcomers by ringing a bell and announcing “(so and so) is no longer a slopper virgin!” while regulars offer a warning: “Don’t go too far from the bathroom.”
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