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Tom Fazzio first set foot on the polished wood floors of Antlers Cafe and Bar when he was 11 years old.

He and his father, fresh off the hunting trails, walked in to hear owner Mike Benedick hollering out his restaurant rules: "Don't walk around with a drink in your hands."

Because Tom's father was a hefty Italian man, the young boy was surprised by the restaurant's feisty owner.

"He had his rules," Tom said about Benedick. "He'd cook lunch for you if he felt like it."

Tom told the story for years, eventually bringing a friend back years later to to meet the legendary Benedick.

"The place really stuck in my mind," Tom said.

Benedick and his wife, Emily, tended to the restaurant from 1933 to 1996. It reopened in 1998 with new owners, who later had to close it again.

A few months ago, when the Fazzios came to Oak Creek from Denver for a memorial service, they decided to do something about it.

"It was a shame that a place with so much history was closed," Vicky Fazzio, Tom's wife, said.

Tom is a retired police officer, and Vicky was working in insurance at the time. Although the couple had talked about owning a restaurant in the future -- Tom has always loved to cook -- they thought it would be a long way off.

But giving the restaurant a chance seemed like "the right thing to do," Tom said, so the couple talked with owner Dr. Charles Hamblin, who also wanted the restaurant to be open, and worked out a deal.

The Fazzios have spent the past few months scrubbing and polishing the wood floors, bars, stools and tables, and reopened the restaurant's 100-year-old doors two weeks ago.

Since the restaurant's reopening, Yampa residents and visitors alike have been stopping in for a meal, eager to swap their Mike Benedick stories again and drink up the restaurant's old-fashioned atmosphere.

The Fazzios have been flooded with calls from hunters who are coming from across the country and wondering whether the restaurant will be serving when they are in town.

The couple is starting off with a basic menu and a few daily specialties, with the goal of making sure every dish tastes delicious.

One of their specialties is top-notch steaks. Tom, who grew up ranching, knows what good beef tastes like. He shopped around until he found a good local beef source.

The Fazzios also make their own green and red chilies, and offer burgers, burritos, onion rings, chili cheese fries and more. A different dessert is offered each day, from pecan pie to peach cobbler.

Although the Fazzios don't have the sort of rules that made Mike Benedick famous, they do have some basic restaurant philosophies. First, meals should not only taste good, but also offer big portions at affordable prices.

"I want people to walk out of here saying, 'That was really good,'" Tom said.

Second, coffee is always free, part of the Fazzios' effort to open the doors to anyone and everyone -- whether they want a full meal, or just a place to sip hot coffee and catch up with friends.

The couple wants the restaurant to be welcoming to families, as evidenced by the big jar of lollipops Vicky placed near the door to hand out to children.

"People like a place where they can feel comfortable," Vicky said.

And, there is the cafe's history, which the Fazzios said they would do their best to preserve. Most everything in Antlers is original, dating back to the year the hotel was built, sometime between 1904 and 1906.

"It's a place where people can take a look at what the Old West was really like," Tom said. "This is what it really was," he continued, pointing out the original dark-wood bars and stuffed wild animals, from deer to bobcats. The restaurant's original poker table still sits in the corner.

Tom and Vicky said they also had hoped to put a journal in the restaurant, so longtime customers could write down their Benedick stories. Now, Vicky said she's hoping to tape record and then type up the stories herself.

Meanwhile, the stories about Benedick keep flowing in.

Like the one about the time a man tried to ride his horse into the bar.

There are several different endings to that story: in one, Benedick shoots the horse dead, in another, the man rides through the entire bar. Perhaps the most believable one is that Benedick stopped the horse and rider at the door with the machete he always had on hand.

"Everybody that's ever crossed his path remembers him," Tom said about Benedick.

The Antlers Cafe and Bar in Yampa is opens at noon, Tuesday through Sunday.