Before Mustard’s Last Stand, there was Bush’s Drive-In — a look at Boulder’s fading roadside past

In the early 1950s, when America’s suburbs boomed and television variety show host Dinah Shore belted out “See the USA in your Chevrolet,” fast-food and drive-in restaurants popped up everywhere. Boulder was no exception. Popular hamburger joints at the time included the Twinburger, then east of Boulder on Arapahoe Avenue.

Twinburger and others from the 1950s are long gone, but two restaurant buildings from an even earlier era are still recognizable today. Of the two, Mustard’s Last Stand at 1719 Broadway is slated for the wrecking ball.

Even if the restaurant reopens in another location, the community will be left with a little bit less of our past. 

Still standing from 1940 is the building that housed the Nifty-Nix drive-in at 2000 Arapahoe Avenue. The “nix” came from the owner’s name, Henry Mullenix, a butcher from Mississippi. Adjacent to the restaurant was an auto camp called the Nifty Nix Cottages. The auto camp is gone today, but the Nifty-Nix building is still there. In recent years, it served as the home of Daddy Bruce’s Bar-B-Que before becoming Snarf’s Sandwiches today. 

Even earlier, at 1719 12th Street (now Broadway), was True’s Thirst Shop, founded in 1930 by Roy and Jessie True. The small root beer parlor was located on the current site of Mustard’s Last Stand. At first, True’s sold only root beer and other soft drinks. 

By 1933, the owners had remodeled the building into True’s Barrel — an almost futuristic-themed roadside “lunchroom” with an enclosed circular counter.

In 1940, the “barrel” was razed and replaced with a new building and a new hamburger shop, Happy Jack’s Oasis. In 1944, Boulder resident Harold Bush leased the restaurant. Then, in 1946, he and his brother Leo bought it and renamed it Bush’s Drive-In. The men alternated shifts and put in long hours, beginning with breakfast and continuing until downtown movie theaters closed in the evenings. 

Bush’s continued to be popular with high school and college students. Patrons with cars pulled into the parking lot, and a carhop, often on roller skates, took their orders and then skated back to deliver them.

A remodel in 1955 turned Bush’s Drive-In into the building that more closely resembles Mustard’s Last Stand as it looks today. Bush’s was a family business, with sons Bob and Ron taking over in the 1960s. Boulder High School students stopped by for lunch, and the restaurant always was busy on CU football game days.

In the early years, hamburgers were 20 cents. Then came the restaurant’s specialty, a “Bush Burger.” These hamburger club sandwiches were made with bread, meat, bread, meat and more bread, with lettuce, tomato and cheese wedged inside.

Bush’s Drive-In and the Nifty-Nix were centrally located near downtown, on or near Arapahoe Avenue. Before the Boulder-Denver Turnpike (now U.S. 36) brought travelers from Denver, Arapahoe Avenue/Road was the main route into Boulder.

In 1953, the Twinburger “driveateria” (as it was called) opened on the south side of Arapahoe, near its intersection with 33rd Street. Twinburger and its surroundings have since been replaced by a strip mall.

Like fast food restaurants of today, drivers ordered through a speaker and drove to a window to pick up their food. According to a newspaper article from the time, the new drive-in “eliminated the disagreeable practice of sounding the horn or blinking the car lights to catch the carhop’s attention.” 

The Twinburger was such a novelty that it was featured in the October 1957 issue of “Drive-In Magazine.” The management claimed that it served each customer in 45 seconds. Supposedly, all drivers had to do was count the cars in line to know how long they would have to wait for their orders.

Meanwhile, Bush’s Drive-In continued to serve its Bush Burgers until 1971 when Harvey Lindenberg and Terry Goodhart opened Mustard’s Last Stand in the former Bush’s Drive-In building. Mustard’s specialty then, as it is today, was Chicago-style hotdogs.

In 1973, the restaurant’s lease was not renewed, and Lindenberg and Goodhart filed suit over a dispute with their landlord. 

Around this same time, the city began construction of the Park Central building, completed in 1974. Although Mustard’s was not open at the time, the restaurant’s name remained on the 1719 Broadway building. A newspaper reporter stated that the restaurant had taken its “last stand.” With a new landlord and new partner, Danny Polovin, Lindenberg reopened Mustard’s in 1978.

The City of Boulder is redeveloping the area and will tear down both the Park Central Building and Mustard’s Last Stand. One of the reasons is that the buildings are in a floodway. Perhaps so, but Mustard’s has also stood the test of time.