Indoor-dining pause scares owners of iconic Pueblo bar famous for Slopper

It’s the signature menu item at Gray’s Coors Tavern, at 515 W. Fourth St. in downtown Pueblo, founded in 1934 in its current form after a previous life as a railroad bar. The hefty hamburger dish -- available with as many as six patties -- is smothered in chili and served in a bowl. If you like, you can have it with fries, onions and/or bacon on top as well, and even an egg, with an ice-cold schooner on the side.

The Slopper has attained national acclaim, with Food Network describing it as a “beast-in-a-bowl that’s … roughly the size of a small planet.” In 2010 it was the subject of a Travel Network episode. And the staff of Denver’s Westword in 2016 named it one of their 100 favorite Colorado dishes.

The tall tale concerns how the Slopper originated. As Gray's owner Carrie Fetty tells it, it all started about 70 years ago with Herb Casebeer, a beloved local sporting-goods purveyor and backer of local sports who died in 2009.

"In 1950, Herb Casebeer came in and ordered a burger, and he said, 'Cover it with red chili. At my house we call that a Slopper.' And that's where the Slopper came from."

In the 1980s, Gray's introduced green chili as the favored Slopper topper, Fetty says.

The Slopper's fame has helped Gray's draw customers even amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"This is the staple," Fetty says. "We're lucky to have the Slopper, the one thing that'll keep us going through COVID."

But as of Nov. 22, Pueblo County was added to the list of counties in Colorado where indoor dining has been put on pause again as the disease spikes across the state. Restrictions earlier took effect in metro-Denver counties and several others around the state.