The Westword Gets Boulder Brew Bus Fever!
We recently partnered with the West End Tavern to launch a Boulder Brewery tour. Check out what the Westword has to say about it!
Boulderites have been going to the West End Tavern for years to sample its distinguished selection of craft brews, including some hard to find specialties. But beginning on June 20, the West End will be taking its customers to the beer. Owned by the Big Red F Restaurant Group, the West End is rolling out the Boulder Brew Bus, a funky spectacle of a vehicle which will pop in at three breweries, Avery, Upslope and Twisted Pine, every Sunday, beginning at 5:30 p.m. The three-hour tours, which cost $30, include tours and tastings at each place and an appetizer back at the West End. The bus, which is described as being “tricked out like a traveling hillbilly shack,” can hold 25 people and is owned and operated by Banjo Billy’s Bus Tours, which also gives tours of Boulder and Denver focusing on ghost tales, crime stories, and history. “We partnered with Avery, Twisted Pine and Upslope because we’ve had a long standing relationship with them,” says Bryce Clark, of Big Red F, which owns Jax Fish House, Lola and Happy, among others. “They are all really great Boulder breweries to work with, and since the relationship with already there, what better reason.”
The West End Tavern hits the road in a Boulder Brew Bus
You Go Glenn!
Glenn, one of our Boulder guides, caught up with Boulder’s Daily Camera to talk a little about Banjo Billy. Check out his video below and head over to his blog The Tall Thin Guy to learn more about Glenn.
Banjo Billy on metromix, Part 1
Heidi from metromix takes a ride on the Banjo Billy’s bus with Banjo Billy himself, checking out a local brewery and learning a bit about how much Coloradans love beer!
AAA Loves Boulder & Banjo Billy
You know you’re a funky fun ride when even AAA says so! Check out our mention in EnCompass Magazine!
“Scratch below its cultural surface, and you’ll discover Boulder’s wacky roots. For the real (and historical) dirt, hop on Banjo Billy’s Bus Tour for a 90-minute, side-splitting ride in an old school bus turned hillbilly shack. Owner John Georgis (aka Banjo Billy) tells tales of history, ghosts or “gruesome crime” as guests bounce on old sofas or saddles under a psychedelic canopy. “On the left, a statue of Chief Niwot. On the right … well, there is no right in Boulder,” quips Georgis, referring to the town’s political leanings.”
Boulder’s Winter Bug – Boulder’s local color: fun and funky
An Interview With Banjo
John, aka Banjo Billy himself goes on air to talk shack bus with the folks at Front Range Boulder.
“Banjo Billy Guided Tours” – Frontrangeboulder.com Listen in Here!
RMN Gets Thier Pants Scared Off
Ghosts and ghouls and shack buses… oh my!
“Banjo Billy’s bus tour: ghosts, crime and history
• Stops include: Hotel Boulderado, the site of three suicides; The Arnett-Fullen House, the haunted former home of Historic Boulder; Mount Saint Gertrude Academy, supposedly haunted by the ghost of Sister Mary Theodore O’Connor; The Boulder Theater; Pi Beta Phi Sorority house; The University of Colorado’s Macky Auditorium and the Boulder History Museum, which reported strange occurrences after inheriting memorabilia belonging to an obsessive Boy Scout, who was forced out of the organization at the age of 46.
• Duration: 90 minutes
• The rundown: Warmer and easier on your feet than a walking tour, Banjo Billy’s offers a view of Boulder’s spookiest spots from the comforts of a kooky wood-covered school bus featuring a couch, five La-Z-Boy recliners and five saddles. Banjo Billy (aka John Georgis) draws his stories primarily from the books, Haunted Boulder: Ghostly Tales from the Foot of the Flatirons and Haunted Boulder 2: Ghostly Tales from Boulder and Beyond, but also provides plenty of fun history about the city. (Did you know that Boulder has had more than 80 couch fires and a dozen riots since 1997?)
• Guide style: Like the town he guides visitors around, Banjo Billy takes an easygoing, lighthearted approach to his job. He knows the right details, but also adds a dash of humor (“On the right-hand side of the street, you’ll see Tom’s Tavern,” he says. “Before it was Tom’s, it was the morgue. So, they’ve been serving dead slabs of meat for over 50 years.”) Though he’ll cater his tour to the audience (offering a racier version for college students), he says he’ll never include JonBenet Ramsey’s story. And yes, he does play banjo music on the bus.
• Scariest site: It isn’t difficult to imagine ghosts occupying the foreboding red brick Castle House. Located in Boulder’s University Hill neighborhood, the house has been the subject of ghost stories for decades. Former resident, artist Ruth Savig, says her daughter once awoke in the middle of the night to report a large man shaking her heavy bed. When she checked on her daughter’s story, she found the nearly-impossible-to-move bed a foot away from the wall. She later discovered that a large man had died in the room. On another occasion, while sketching alone in the house, she heard a woman telling her to “get out.” Not easily intimidated, Savig explained that it was now her house and she had no plans to leave. When she looked down at her sketch, she found that she had drawn the portrait of a previous owner.
• Most gruesome tale: It doesn’t get much more horrifying than the murder of Elaura Jaquette. In 1966, a janitor killed the zoology major in the west tower at Macky Auditorium, smearing her blood against the walls of a small rehearsal room for the music school. Legend has it that the young woman’s screams sometimes fill the building at night.
• Rating: Three and a half ghosts”
“Tour de Fright” – Rocky Mountain News
Boulder Weekly Rides the Bus
Mystery Machine it may be, but at least it’s not Mystery Meat!
Banjo Billy’s Mystery Machine
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by Vince Darcangelo (buzz@boulderweekly.com)
In the course of 80 minutes we encounter three suicides, one lynching, one especially brutal murder-rape and one pathological Boy Scout who is creepier than your average troop leader on a camping trip. Toss in a ride to the cemetery and a cruise past the old morgue and it would seem a busy night on the mean streets of the People’s Republic. But for Banjo Billy it’s just another October Thursday in Boulder.
But Banjo Billy’s not a cop, a coroner or even one of those hip forensic investigators that are all the rage on primetime television.
“I’m just a guy who likes to tell stories,” he says.
Since June, Banjo Billy has been shuttling locals and visitors alike on Banjo Billy’s Bus Tours, a guided, interactive sightseeing trek of Boulder’s historic downtown, University Hill and Chautauqua Park areas.
“A lot of my stories are a little morose,” says Billy, who is better known as John Georgis away from the bus. “Ninety percent of my tours start out with three suicides. You’re not going to get that on a Gray Line tour. Maybe that’s our Generation X thing coming out.”
The regular Banjo Billy tour includes colorful stories and interesting facts about some of Boulder’s most infamous residents and locales, but since autumn, armed with two volumes of Haunted Boulder and the realization that his passengers love a good spook tale, Georgis has complemented his daylight excursion with Banjo Billy’s Boulder Ghost Stories, a full-moon descent into Boulder’s Twilight Zone.
Boulder Ghost Stories begins at the Hotel Boulderado, where Georgis tells of the reputed ghosts that still linger on the third floor. We cruise past Tom’s Tavern, the one-time morgue now one of Boulder’s most famous hamburger joints.
“Either way, they’ve been serving up slabs of dead meat for a long time,” quips Georgis.
From there we travel to Boulder Creek, where nocturnal joggers and bicyclists have reported seeing a transparent man in a black duster; the park where a mysterious woman in white is said to prowl rows of ancient cottages; and, of course, Macky Auditorium, where a gruesome sexual assault occurred in the organ room of the west tower. We also swing by upscale downtown venues like the Boulder Theater and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art—places known more for their hip events than for their haunts.
But for all the local color explored on the tour, nothing can match the uniqueness of the Banjo Billy bus. As funky and outrageous as Boulder itself, this hillbillied-out school bus (which Georgis purchased off of eBay) is easily recognizable around town with its funky wood siding, pitched roof and the unmistakable twang of banjo music blasting from its speakers. What appears to be a shack on wheels from the outside is more like a rave on the inside. Tapestries adorn the high, peaked ceiling, showcasing a spinning disco ball. The interior lining is denim; the floor of the 11-year-old school bus is covered with Astroturf. The original seats have been fancily reupholstered and seem more like comfortable love seats than the hard-backed, cheap vinyl benches I sat on when riding to school. Where the original seats have been removed, they have been replaced with thrift-store easy chairs, saddles mounted on sawhorses and a full-sized couch in the back, which Georgis acquired for the tour about a year before he became Banjo Billy.
“My then-girlfriend said, ‘What the hell are you doing with this couch?’” he says. “I said, ‘It’s for the bus.’ She said, ‘What bus?’ I said, ‘It’s coming later.’”
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Banjo Billy bus has nothing to do with the adornment but rather the newfound tradition surrounding the tour. Along the route, locals have taken to hollering out “Banjo Billy” as the bus passes. In response, Georgis instructs us to holler “Yee-haw” with our best hillbilly twang when this occurs. We don’t have to wait long to try out our redneck greeting. Approaching a stop sign on the east end of University Hill, a longhaired young man smoking a cigarette on his front porch jumps to his feet. He opens the front door and hollers to his buddies, who race to the porch hollering, “Banjo Billy.” We respond appropriately.
Georgis says that this household is particularly enthusiastic about the tour and once dropped their drawers to offer tourists a view of the Harvest Moon. Georgis responded by giving them free tickets.
“You’ve got to encourage that type of behavior,” he laughs.
As the tour concludes, we return to the Hotel Boulderado and park alongside the curb with Catacombs to our right and traffic passing by on our left. It’s a warm October night, so we chat outside the bus for a while. The Boulder Cruzer Club rides past us on their tricked-out one-speed cruiser bicycles, sporting outrageous costumes, wacky noisemakers and shouting, “Happy Thursday” to all within earshot. Many riders dress up in drag; at least one dons what appears to be a bear costume. Another has rigged his bike frame to hold a boom box, which blasts classic rock to downtown patio dwellers. At one point the light at 13th and Spruce turns red, forcing a group of about 20 riders to stop beside us. We are frozen for a moment, them staring at the Banjo Billy bus, us staring back at the Cruzers. It is a moment that is pure Boulder, a mirror image of two of the city’s most interesting traditions come together on one street. It’s a reminder that perhaps the only thing more colorful than Boulder’s past is its present.
“Banjo Billy’s Mystery Machine” – Boulder Weekly
We're Just a Wild and Crazy Ride!
We got another mention in the Daily Camera. Seems people just can’t get enough of our wild side.
A spin on the wild side: Banjo Billy a Boulder sight
Matt Branaugh
Posted: 05/31/2005 12:00:00 AM MDT
Take a 36-foot school bus, strip off the roof, bust out the passenger windows, strap some wooden fence pickets on the sides, and add a stereo and microphone system, and what you get isn’t really like anything Boulder has seen.
And we’re talking about Boulder, so that’s saying a lot.
Soon, you may be able to check it out for yourself. Banjo Billy’s Bus Tours is rolling out, bringing a tour that weaves throughout the city every day during the summer months. The company is in the process of lining up a license from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, the state agency that oversees commercial transportation.
Customers will get an 80-minute tour highlighting history and mystery, voting to hear which of the 10 ghost stories and five murder tales – sans JonBenet Ramsey, since all of them pre-date 1966 – available from a hillbilly tour guide while viewing notable historical sites, the Mork & Mindy house included, of course.
“I wanted it to reek of Boulder,” says John Georgis, a Boulder resident who spent six years developing the idea before finally deciding to go after it. “Anything fancy wouldn`t work because Boulder is more organic. It`s eclectic.”
For Banjo Billy`s, eclectic might be an understatement.
In 1999, Georgis trekked through Europe solo, using bus tours as opportunities to meet people. More often than not, he says he endured a lot of boring ones.
“I found what people were looking for was something educational, but mostly entertaining,” he says.
After he returned, he bounced around the idea for a zany-styled bus tour with some friends. Georgis, who mines data for marketing companies for a living, kicked around a couple of concepts.
A trolley car? Too bland. A log cabin bus? Too heavy for wheels. Then came the idea of throwing up fencing on the sides of a bus, ripping off the roof and replacing it with a pitched tin roof, effectively creating a look unmistakably hillbilly.
In February, Georgis headed to Illinois and shelled out $6,000 to buy an 11-year-old bus. He drove it back and got to work, calling upon his girlfriend Beth Godden to help with design.
The party starts outside – with mini-disco balls dangling in front of the bus` warning lights and a rubber chicken strapped to the roof by a string of Christmas lights – and continues inside, where Willie Nelson blares on the stereo, more lights hang from the windows and an Egyptian tapestry drapes across the roof with a large disco ball.
Then there`s the seating. Georgis kept six of the original bus seats and had Godden re-cover them. He yanked out the rest, replacing them with four recliners, one couch and four horse saddles perched atop separate sawhorses. In all, he can seat 28 people.
Georgis leaned heavily on the Carnegie Library, as well as the work of local authors Silvia Pettem, Roz Brown and Ann Alexander Leggett, to compile the history. He hired two Boulder Valley School District bus drivers. He also has three tour guides, including himself, to help with the work load.
Georgis is working on partnerships with local retailers and hotels, and already has nailed down one with the Boulder Outlook Hotel & Suites.
“They`ve been great in their marketing and they`ve been proactive,” says Dan King, co-owner and “Ambassador of Cool” at Boulder Outlook. “It sounds like a cool idea.”
Banjo Billy`s has done a few runs with local groups already. Revenue is coming in, which is good news, considering the insurance costs more per month than what he paid for the bus, Georgis says. But it`s worth it – and it`s been fun.
“We need something to keep Boulder weird,” he says.
“A Spin On the Wild Side” – Daily Camera (Boulder Dirt)
