Johnson’s Corner restaurant closes

INTERSTATE 25

Iconic truck stop location to reopen soon as a chain diner

By Dallas Heltzell

BizWest / Prairie Mountain Media

A roadside restaurant — world famous for its cinnamon rolls — that was a familiar stop for travelers along Interstate 25 since 1952 closed Sunday, to be replaced soon by a California-based chain’s franchised diner.

The gasoline station and convenience store at Johnson’s Corner, 2842 SE Frontage Road in Johnstown, remained open as of Tuesday, and a sign on the window indicates the cinnamon rolls will still be available in the store.

After what store manager Eric Quintana estimated would be about three months — “but you know how construction is,” he said — the restaurant will reopen as a Black Bear Diner, a chain founded in 1995 in Mount Shasta, California, that now has 162 locations in 13 states including two diners in Colorado Springs and one each in Aurora and Fountain. According to that company’s website, a new location is planned in Pueblo as well.

“They’re redoing the kitchen, the flooring, literally tearing everything down,” Quintana told BizWest on Tuesday. “It’ll be completely fresh and new.”

The cinnamon rolls, created by a former Johnson’s Corner employee, were well known to truckers and travelers in Northern Colorado for decades, but burst into international fame in 1998 when Travel & Leisure magazine put the pastries on its list of the top 10 breakfasts in the world. Johnson’s Corner was the only winner from North America on its list.

Food Network in 2004 called Johnson’s Corner the “Top Truck Stop Restaurant” in the country and listed the cinnamon rolls as Colorado’s entry in its ”50 States of Baked Goods” feature.

The truck stop also appeared in 2013 in an episode titled ”Truck Stop Paradise” on the Travel Channel’s “Food Paradise” program.

The restaurant appeared in the 1996 movie “Larger than Life,” starring Bill Murray and Matthew McConaughey, and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan made a campaign stop there in 2012.

All that fame overwhelmed the restaurant’s kitchen, Quintana said, adding that “the cinnamon rolls got way too popular to be produced there.

“So we opened a commercial bakery next door. We own it. It’s here on site, and the cinnamon rolls are still being produced there. We still have contracts with vendors who carry our cinnamon rolls, and we are also working with our corporate office to add our big donuts to the store.”

That corporate office belongs to TravelCenters of America, which in 2014 bought Johnson’s Corner from former Loveland City Council member Chauncey Taylor, who started working as a busboy there at age 12.

Taylor had undertaken a $6.5 million remodel of the restaurant in 2003, adding Wi-Fi, showers, a laundry, a lounge and massage services for truckers.

After the sale, TravelCenters of America continued operating the restaurant as one of its “Petro” locations.

“When Petro took it over, they remodeled that kitchen completely and put several million into it,” Quintana said.

The restaurant’s closure comes about 10 months after Texas-based Buc-ee’s opened a 74,000-square-foot travel center about three miles south of Johnson’s Corner on the other side of the interstate. Buc-ee’s has 116 gas pumps and 12 electric-vehicle charging stations, and is known for its barbecue brisket sandwiches — although, unlike the shuttered Johnson’s Corner restaurant or the upcoming Black Bear, it has no sit-down dining area.

Joe Johnson founded Johnson’s Corner in 1937 at 250 S. Main St. in Longmont, and that building received its own worldwide notoriety 20 years later when beatnik writer Jack Kerouac mentioned it in his autobiographical novel “On the Road.” In the book, he described falling asleep under a tree in front of the gas station for “two delicious hours,” then waking up and enjoying a “rich, thick milkshake” from the roadhouse.

That long-closed gas station was transported in 2003 to 1111 Neon Forest Circle in the Prospect “new urbanism” neighborhood built by developer Kiki Wallace in Longmont. After Wallace was unsuccessful in obtaining historic-preservation grant money to renovate the building, it sat vacant and in disrepair until real estate developer Zachary Nassar bought it in 2019. It opened last September as Johnson’s Station, a bar, restaurant and gathering place with decor including tributes to Kerouac.

Johnson opened his second location in Johnstown in 1952 along what was then U.S. Highway 87, years before Interstate 25 was built right in front of his business.

Until Sunday’s closure, the Johnson’s Corner restaurant featured such breakfast items as steak and eggs, chicken fried chicken with eggs, house-made biscuits and gravy, and cinnamon roll french toast. Lunch and dinner items included tacos, burgers, French dip and club sandwiches, and chicken fried steak.

When it opens, Black Bear Diner will include a full breakfast, lunch and dinner menu, but its decor will reflect co-founder Bob Manley’s love for the outdoors and the diner’s Mount Shasta roots. According to its website, “the unique and clever bear carvings reflect the local flavor of each diner. You’ll find bears as skiers, fighter pilots, grape-stompers and more. Ray Schulz, our chainsaw-wielding mastermind, has carved around 4,000 of these bears.”