To anyone who enjoyed the European food and warm family atmosphere at Arvada’s Golden Europe restaurant, its closing on May 28 hit hard.

Losing a place where the comfort food was as home cooked as you could get with family recipes from the Palla family hurt and disappointed many. There would be no other place serving up the beloved made from scratch dishes like the liver dumpling soup and authentic schnitzel.

But it was time.

The Pallas were tired after 27 years of serving up plates of German, Czechoslovakian and Polish food. Anyone who has worked in it knows the restaurant business can be brutal — busy, stressful, long hours and physical work.

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“We were done,” said Joe Palla. “We’ve been looking for a buyer, but no one wants to do what we’ve done. They just want to buy a business. We did everything. All the cooking, cleaning, vacuuming, mopping, toilet cleaning was all done by family. We never had a manager. … It’s been a long time coming.”

Josef and Emilie Palla, Joe’s parents, bought the former Pizza Hut at 6620 Wadsworth Blvd. on June 22, 1995, for $215,000. It’s in a strip mall called the Shops on Wadsworth.

The Palla family immigrated to America in 1980 from Czechoslovakia with “nothing but suitcases,” landing in the Chicago area. Joe Palla was 8 years old.

In just five years, they scraped together enough money to open the Little Bohemia restaurant in Riverside, Illinois, using recipes handed down from Emilie’s family for generations. They operated it for eight years before heading to the sunny skies and mountains of Colorado.

“We wanted to move to Colorado — it’s beautiful here,” Joe Palla said. “We had vacationed here. It was a big move for the family. We were looking for a place to open a restaurant and landed here in Arvada.”

Emilie, known affectionately as “Mama” by the legions of Golden Europe customers, was the main cook. Josef did whatever needed to be done, including hosting, busing and waiting tables in addition to running the business side of the restaurant.

Young Joe worked as a busboy at first, but he grew up at the Golden Europe and eventually took over for his partially retired dad about 10 years ago.

“I was the assistant cook and did everything. I did all the shopping — we never got deliveries. I’d go to Restaurant Depot, Costco, Sam’s Club because I hated the vegetables they used to deliver,” he said. “Mom’s recipes were from her parents, but she came up with a lot of them, too.”

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Joe’s son, 14-year-old Jakub, worked at the restaurant, as did his wife Halina.

Families in north metro Denver grew to love the Golden Europe. They’d bring European relatives there. They’d celebrate birthdays and anniversaries with the apple strudel and generous portions, washed down with German beer. They’d get a meal before a show at the Arvada Center for the Arts across the street.

So when it was finally time to close, the Pallas contemplated their final curtain call.

“My parents are 73. I’m 50, but feel like 70,” Joe Palla said. “We were ready to leave.”

They knew anyone taking over the restaurant would not be able to deliver the made from scratch food and the family atmosphere like they could.

“My mom feels like we left our mark here, this footprint in Arvada. Someone taking over would never be the same. And it usually goes down. We didn’t want to leave like that.”

And they didn’t want to just suddenly close the doors.

So they decided on a two-week “last call,” announced on their website, Facebook page and Instagram.

What they weren’t prepared for was the crush of customers and huge outpouring of love and good luck wishes that flowed from the Jefferson County community.

There was not an empty table for those last two weeks — the line was constant and stretched into the parking lot night after night.

“It was crazy. We were not expecting that,” Joe Palla said.

They halted all to-go orders. They stopped taking reservations. They even quit answering the phone. And still the customers came — sometimes night after night.

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The line May 26 started an hour before the doors opened at 4:30 p.m.

Many in line had tried to get a table the night before, but the wait was more than two hours — so they came back earlier the next day.

Rick and Fran Thompson, Jefferson County natives, were at the front of that line.

“I’ve eaten almost everything on the menu here,” Rick Thompson said. “They have the absolute best German food.”

“It’s better than what I’ve gotten in Germany,” added Lisa Cillessen of Broomfield, who frequented the Golden Europe for 20 years.

Thompson said he first discovered the restaurant after his brother, who had married a German woman, brought him with the promise of how authentic the German food was.

“The red cabbage, wiener schnitzel and potato salad are my absolute favorites,” said Thompson. 

The classic wiener schnitzel dish, by the way, is NOT a hot dog. It’s a breaded, tenderized veal dish.

“I haven’t had a 30-minute break since we announced the closing,” said Joe Palla, in between taking food and drink orders.

One man brought flowers and a card for Mama.

Customers didn’t seem to mind the wait and profusely thanked the Pallas for the good food and 27 years of memories. One customer posted on Facebook a picture of four generations of her family eating its last meal there.

“The svickova is the dish that (made) me fall in love with this place,” said Cillessen, who had gone to the restaurant a few days earlier, too. “My daughter worked as a buser here.”

“My aunt and uncle celebrated their anniversary here every year,” said Debbie Roach, who was waiting with her husband Dennis. “This is a special place. I don’t know where we’re going to go now to get that authentic German food.”

Matthew Johnson, 26, of Westminster has been frequenting the Golden Europe since he was 7.

“My sister was in German class at Stanley High School and her German Club used to come here,” said Johnson, who took off work early from his bartending job so he could get in line early enough. It was too long the night before.

“It’s such a great spot — I’m really going to miss it.”

Johnson can’t afford to eat out too many times on his bartender’s salary, but he budgeted in a couple last visits to the Golden Europe.

His own German Club at Stanley High started coming to the restaurant and continued the tradition after they turned 21 — enjoying the German beer with a couple of “prost” cheers and singing German drinking songs like “Oh du lieber Augustin.” His German teacher made the last call, too.

Johnson usually gets the boot-shaped glass of pilsner, which is 1 liter (about 33 ounces), and he always gets the liver dumpling soup.

“I introduced a friend to it not long back. Now he’s mad at me because it’s closing after he got hooked on the food,” Johnson said. “I’m happy I got to enjoy it as many times as I have. This is my comfort food.”

Everyone leaving that night took large “doggie bags” home — though it’s doubtful any canines actually got that food as customers cherished taking the last taste of Golden Europe home.

Longtime customers begged the Pallas on the restaurant’s Facebook page to share recipes for those well-loved dishes like the liver dumpling soup or the svickova (a Czech-style sauerbraten dish).

“There were no recipes. They were all in Mama’s head,” Joe Palla said. “And we made really large portions of them. How do you share that?”

She might make a recipe book, but for now the whole family needs a break.

On the last night, Mama came out of the kitchen and the entire dining room burst into applause as Emilie wept, Joe Palla said.

“We couldn’t believe people were waiting that long. We’ve had a line here or there on a Friday or Saturday night, but we’ve never experienced something like this. The employees couldn’t believe what was going on. … We all worked 80 hours a week those last two weeks.

“I didn’t know we had such a following.”

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And May 28, it finally hit home. The family’s second home — they counted customers as part of their family — would never open again.

A group of priests from Arvada’s St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church enjoyed the last supper, so to speak. The family joined them after the 8:30 p.m. closing and they reminisced into the night.

“(The last day) was an emotional day for everyone,” Joe Palla said.

Then the family rolled up their sleeves May 29 and May30, deep cleaning the building and clearing out 27 years of memories.

They sold the building May31.

“We really want to thank all the customers and employees for the last 27 years,” Joe Palla said. “We’ve seen them weekly, sometimes, and that’s going to end. But I made a lot of contacts in the last two weeks, and I’ll actually have time now to visit with them.”

For the Pallas, the American dream became reality.