NEWBERG, Ore. — When husband-wife team Kelly and Kelly Koch signed a lease on a vacant First Street storefront last summer, skeptics were not in short supply. Newberg, the conventional wisdom held, simply didn’t go out after dark.
“I had people say there is no living way that will work in Newberg,” said Kelly Koch, who co-owns the western-themed bar and restaurant with his wife, who shares his first name. “They don’t go out after eight o’clock at night.”
Six months in, Bronco Kelly‘s has established a foothold. Friday and Saturday nights fill the room consistently. Live music is booked Thursday through Saturday through August, drawing patrons from as far as Lake Oswego and Hillsboro, the owners report. The venue recently added lunch service and is participating in local festival activities like the Truffle Trail event in February.
Whether the model is sustainable is a question the Kochs are still working through. But the early returns have been enough to keep them building.
A Family Operation
Bronco Kelly’s is largely run by the Koch family. Their daughter, Jamie Murstig, serves as general manager — a role she stepped into with no bar industry background after a 20-year career in graphic design.
“It was trial by fire,” she said. “Everything is an emergency. Being out of something is not an option. You just find ways to get it done.”
Murstig described the first months as a steep learning curve: managing inventory across more than a dozen distributors, adjusting to late-night hours while raising three children, and building systems with bar manager Zoe to prevent recurring problems.
“Each week we fix something from the week before,” she said.
Chef Harvey Smith came to the job through an unlikely path. He attended culinary school before high school graduation. His first restaurant job was inside the Redmond Municipal Airport in 1998, followed by a detour riding bulls at rodeo competitions in Wyoming and Montana (which he still does at the age of 48). He was working as a welder before the Kochs tracked him down last summer.
“I didn’t know if I wanted to go, but something just told me to go,” Smith said. “God gives you little shoves here and there, and this was God telling me, ‘You’re done in the mill. This is not where you need to be.'”
His menu centers on comfort food at accessible price points. Offerings include loaded baked potatoes, hand-breaded fish and chips, and smoked prime rib on Thursdays. The Bronco Buster potato — topped with pulled pork, brisket, bacon, and nacho cheese — has become the top seller.
“I want the working man to be able to come in, bring his wife on a date, and not go home broke,” Smith said.
The Live Music Gamble
The Kochs have made live entertainment the centerpiece of the operation, acknowledging openly that it doesn’t pencil out on its own.
“Is the live music making you money?” Kelly Koch said, repeating a question he hears often. “No.”
Cover charges — typically $5 to $10, depending on the act — don’t cover the cost of larger bands. The bet is that music drives volume and repeat visits, where people make it a consistent, weekly night out.
“We’re dumping all of our money into entertainment,” he said. “We really want to become an entertainment destination for people going into spring.”
The calendar expanded to include Thursdays earlier this year. The bar also hosts weekly line dancing every Tuesday, which sometimes spills onto the sidewalk due to attendance.
“Everybody just really appreciates it,” Kelly Koch said. “And the people that are here, the people that come here, are just good people, and they just want to have a good time and have fun.”
One revenue source the owners considered — video lottery machines — they ultimately declined.
“We have got so much feedback from our people that don’t want it, and they all say it’ll change the vibe of the bar,” Kelly Koch said. “It’ll change the feel of the bar. Everybody says it’ll just… well, they all say wreck it.”
Koch said the decision also reflected the family’s values. When the bar extended hours to allow minors, preserving a family-friendly environment became a priority.
“When we changed the kids’ hours, that was a turning point where we said we’re not bringing in the machines,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how much money it’ll bring in — and it is a lot of money — but it wouldn’t be worth it if our customers and staff didn’t feel safe.”
On a related note, the bar closes at midnight, a policy the Kochs are holding firm despite occasional pushback from the college-age crowd that drifts in near closing time.
“Nothing good happens after midnight,” Kelly Koch said. “We raised kids. We know how this goes.”
The bar’s community involvement has extended beyond its four walls. Bronco Kelly’s participated in the Halloween Trick-or-Treat Street Crawl, rapidly going through 100 pre-made goodie bags before running out of candy for the thousands of event attendees. The Kochs say they look forward to more community events and contributions, including YCAP’s Melt Down.
“The give-back thing is very important to us,” Kelly Koch said, “especially after how well we’ve been received.”
What’s Next
The Kochs are thinking bigger. They launched lunch service to fill a gap in downtown’s weekday dining options that they identified early on. “Bike Night” on Thursday evenings debuted last week, with specials for motorcycle riders.
A camera-and-speaker system is being installed to pipe the stage’s music and video feed into the back room, which has filled increasingly as the front reaches capacity on busy nights.
Further out, there’s the question of brunch. Chef Smith acknowledged the demand but also the challenge of adding it to the menu, particularly with a limited kitchen.
“Brunch scares me,” Smith said.
He is not ready to say yes. But in Bronco Kelly’s fashion, he didn’t say no, either.
Stay tuned with Bronco Kelly’s as they continue evolving in Newberg at the company’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
Correction March 24 at 1:41 p.m. — The original article attributed quotes from Jamie Murstig, Kelly Koch’s daughter, to Julia Koch, Kelly Koch’s daughter-in-law. Newsberg regrets the error.
