By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — A Broadway bar and restaurant is rebranding with a new name that pays homage to its late owner and the location’s legacy as a sports pub.
Dusty Boots Saloon & Eatery, 3907 Broadway, will now be called Broadway Joe’s — and the change comes with some new looks, features, furnishings and menu items.
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Owner Jordan Auker said he has planned on rebranding ever since buying the bar in 2022 from Cathy Middleton, who was married to the late owner Joe Pendergrass. He landed on a name designed to provoke thoughts of sports — Broadway Joe was the nickname for football great Joe Namath — and honor the memory of Pendergrass, who ran the bar for more than a dozen years before he was killed in May 2016.
“There’s a legacy of Joe Pendergrass here. I still have a picture of him hanging on the wall,” Auker said. “This was his pride, and obviously he’s gone, taken from us all too soon.”
Pendergrass bought the business as Sportspage, a popular neighborhood hangout, and later converted it to Dusty Boots.
He was fatally stabbed during an altercation while responding to a burglary alarm at his wife’s business, Advanced Medical Rehab in Loves Park. A weeklong trial last month ended with Roland Breault, who said he stabbed Pendergrass in self-defense, being found not guilty of first-degree murder and instead convicted of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. Sentencing is slated for Aug. 2.
The timing of the rebrand in relation to the trial was coincidental, said Auker, who was a friend of Pendergrass and has been working on changes at the bar and restaurant for months.
On a recent Wednesday night was another bit of coincidental timing, this time one that held special meaning for Auker. As he was installing the new Broadway Joe’s neon sign, Matt Pendergrass, Joe’s son, walked in and took a seat with his own son.
“It was the unofficial reveal of Broadway Joe’s — the first anybody’s seen of the logo and the sign — and there’s Matt sitting there,” Auker said.
A pawn shop on Broadway once went by the same name, but it has since closed.
The Pendergrass and Auker families have traded businesses before. In 2017, Matt and Jamie Pendergrass purchased Fifth Alarm Firehouse Pub in Byron from Kitty Moring, Auker’s mother, and ran Aero Ale House. Auker purchased is back in late 2023 and turned the space into The Neon Tiger.
In Rockford, Auker said the new branding gives a better depiction of what customers can expect inside the revamped sports bar.
“People expect when they walk in to Dusty Boots that they were going to walk in to everyone wearing a cowboy hat, sitting on saddles, listening to country music and spitting peanuts on the floor,” he said.
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Some of the new touches inside the space include new faux plush leather bar seats, a raised lounge that gives the feel of a VIP area, new TVs for watching sporting events, and a recreation area with a pool table, darts and a Golden Tee arcade game. There’s also new decor being added such as jerseys and sports memorabilia.
“We’ve got a fantastic regular customer base and a great group of employees,” Auker said. “We’re looking to expand the customer base into people who were maybe apprehensive about coming here thinking it was just a country bar.”
Sports is a fitting theme for Auker, a 1999 Byron High School graduate who played football and basketball at the school. He also spent about 10 years on the professional rodeo circuit as a steer wrestler in the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association. He now provides player protection for the Chicago Bears.
On July 20, former Chicago Bear turned musician Zach Miller will perform at Broadway Joe’s. There will also be opportunities for a meet-and-greet after the show.
“I wanted to bring it back to the neighborhood sports bar that it was always great at and everybody knows it for,” Auker said.
The menu has a mix of bar food and gastropub meals. The popular cheese curds, Dusty Boots’ top-selling appetizer, remains on the menu. There’s also bone-in chicken wings that Sportspage was once known for, Auker said. He’s added smashburgers, a variety of handhelds and unique appetizers such as crispy dim sum filled with shrimp and shiitake mushrooms.
There’s also a new Broadway chicken, which is a hand-battered chicken tenderloin served with their signature Broadway sauce. And there’s pizza, flatbread, loaded tater tots and a house special Broadway sloppy Joe.
“I kept the core of who we were and what we should be and added some new and unique things,” Auker said.
About | Broadway Joe’s
Where: 3907 Broadway, Rockford
Hours: 11 a.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday; 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday
On social and the web: Coming soon
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas