The Singer, the Gangster, and the Pianist

  This is the story of a Ziegfeld Girl, a Gangster, a Pianist, True Love, a Restaurant, and a Little Girl's Dream.

 I have had a fascination with the Omelette Parlor in Colorado Springs, Colorado since the first time I saw it. With it's quaint decorations and simple homie charm (not to mention the homemade food served there), there is a certain magnetism that keeps you coming back time and again.
  At the tender age of 4 I first walked into this magical place. We had been trying to find a "good" restaurant to eat at, rest and celebrate the good outcome of my Grandmother's heart surgery which had been quite an ordeal for our whole family. She had been transferred to Co. Springs from Parkview Hospital in Pueblo, Co., and to top it off it had been raining all day. We were wet, exhausted, hungry, and completely tired of fast food joints and hospital food. We had asked a nurse at the hospital where we could go for some good home cooked food and she directed us to 900 Fillmore.
  Walking into the restaurant was like walking in a dream. In my 4 year old mind it was beautiful, warm, and a heavenly haven from the smell of a hospital waiting room and the cold dampness of the world outside. It's hard to believe that I still feel the same way when I walk in, nothing has changed. It still fascinates me and gives me a warm and safe feeling. I love how history simply drips from the rafters onto the walls where quirky paintings of chickens, roosters, farms, pigs, and tons of photographs showcasing Colorado Springs and Colorado from the very beginning all the way to the early 1950's. But the most fascinating history that involves this little diner is the former owner Ruth Etting.
  Ruth Etting had lived an amazing and exciting life which included becoming America's Sweetheart of Song, marrying a gangster named Gimp, being a Ziegfeld girl, then a movie star, divorcing Gimp, and then marrying her accompanist after Gimp in a fit of jealous rage had shot him. In 1938 Ruth and the love of her life Myrl Alderman moved to Colorado Springs and built a house to retire in. I believe the domestic life wasn't an exciting enough life for the two who were used to fame, lights, and applause. Soon after moving in, they turned the house into a restaurant naming it the T-Bone club. They owned and operated it until their deaths. The restaurant then changed names to the Hackney House, and then to it's current name the Omelette Parlor/O'Furrey's.
  This is a piece of living history folks, if you are intrigued by this story then visit the Omelette Parlor for the first time, or if you have been there before please go back and take a closer look.
For more information on Ruth Etting visit http://ruthetting.com/
And for more information on the Omelette Parlor visit http://www.co-spgs-omeletteparlor.com/
You can visit the Omelette Parlor at
900 East Fillmore
Colorado Springs, Co. 80907