Before there was farm-to-table, before there were locavores, before there was angst over gluten, the Turley family was rustling up organic brown rice, tofu, spinach omelettes, whole grain bread and every imaginable herbal tea.

That was nearly 40 years ago. This Sunday, the legacy that began in 1977 ends at 3 p.m. as Turley’s Kitchen, the hallmark Boulder health food eatery, closes its doors.

“This place is my ‘Cheers,'” said longtime customer Paul Nigro, a teacher from Lafayette. Nigro was referring to the long-running TV show about a bar where everyone gathered nightly, like a family.

“This is going to be hard,” he said, clutching a bag of Turley’s own granola. The cereal is a gift for family members in the Midwest who are long-distance fans.

In January, the restaurant’s owners — founder Paul and his daughter, Sandy Turley — disclosed that they were putting the restaurant up for sale.

Though no buyer has been found, staff shortages prompted the family to shut down, rather than continue operating with a smaller and smaller workforce. The building is still for sale, and the lease on the ground on which it sits is still good for another 27 years.

Pulled from the kitchen Monday afternoon, where she was filling in for an absent dishwasher, Sandy Turley said keeping servers and chefs once a restaurant’s sale has been announced is difficult. Hiring new ones to replace those who leave is even harder.

She said she had already reduced the eatery’s hours — closing at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday — but that wasn’t enough to stay ahead of employee departures.

The restaurant’s closure will leave a gap in the local food scene that will be hard to fill, said Clif Harald, executive director of the Boulder Economic Council.

“Sometimes we use the word institution too loosely,” Harald said. “But Paul and his family have been an institution in this community.”

Paul Turley and his brother, Jim, opened a Good Earth franchise on 17th and Pearl in 1977. That eventually became the Harvest. The brothers also operated at the former site of The Golden Buff, at 1725 28th St.

The restaurant eventually wound up at Arapahoe and Folsom in 1994 and became formally known as Turley’s.

Their business was so brisk that servers had to do double duty as parking lot attendants, Sandy Turley recalled. “We would take people’s keys,” she said, so that cars that were double-parked could be moved if another diner finished eating early and needed to leave.

On busy Sunday mornings, customers would push through to reach the bar, taking a cup of coffee and heading back out to the parking lot to wait with dozens of other committed fans for a table.

In 2007, the restaurant moved to its high-profile spot at Pearl and 28th streets, where parking could still get tight.

Sandy Turley said the restaurant is likely to have some kind of gathering to commemorate its closure, and suggested that fans keep an eye on the restaurant’s Facebook page. “Nothing’s been set yet,” she said.

Another longtime customer, Amy Nihan, made her way to the back of the restaurant Monday afternoon, hoping to convince Sandy Turley to think of new opportunities that will keep the Turley legacy alive. Nihan and her husband became engaged outside the Harvest Restaurant. They’ve been coming to eat at Paul and Sandy’s tables ever since.

“I want to find a way this can go on, and on, and on,” Nihan told Turley.

But the well-known restaurateur wasn’t ready to commit to a new project just yet, saying only to her friends and customers, “I am humbled.”

Jerd Smith: 303-473-1332, smithj@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/jerd_smith