Simon Fletcher’s Gridiron Grill and BBQ 14424 U.S. Highway 34 Fort Morgan 970-867-2464 Open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

A former NFL player is tackling the barbecue business in Fort Morgan.

Simon Fletcher, who played for the Denver Broncos as a linebacker from 1985 to 1995, recently opened a new grill near the Clarion Inn in Fort Morgan. This is the second time he’s opened a barbecue, as his restaurant in Greeley, Whistle Blowers Grill and BBQ, closed recently. His new business, Simon Fletcher’s Gridiron Grill and BBQ, opened in February and serves mid-priced, outdoor-smoked meat and seafood.

Fletcher said he had to close Whistle Blowers because its building was condemned. Rather than building something new in Greeley, he decided to move to Morgan County, where he liked the towns and the roadside location.

“I used to come through Morgan County to take my girls fishing in Sterling,” he said. “One summer we stopped at a festival in the park, I believe, and I liked it. I remembered it…I brought my kids up to see if they remembered it, and they thought it was a good idea, and they’re as smart as their mother, so I listened to them.”

Not many retired football players end up in the restaurant business, especially not in rural towns, but Fletcher said he’s been passionate about good food since he was a kid. He asked his grandmother to teach him how to cook one summer so that he could make meals for the family while his mother, a single parent, was working. Ever since then, he said, he can never serve someone else something he wouldn’t give to his family. Toward the end of his football career, that passion turned into a new enterprise when he bought a restaurant and re-worked the menu to include the kind of traditional barbecue he was used to.

The restaurant got enough business in its first month to stay ahead of its costs, despite minimal advertising and several problems with the building, including a gas leak and trouble with the water pipes, which all are now fixed. Fletcher also has had trouble finding employees, partly because his standards are, admittedly, quite high.

“I’m very serious about honoring commitments,” he said. “If somebody tells me, ‘I’ll be here at this time on this day,’ I have zero tolerance.”

Fletcher, who kept the restaurant open even during the severe blizzard on March 23, has a habit of dropping into his conversation what he calls “sermons” about the “entitlement generation” and the benefits of hard work. But he also wants to give his employees a good start on their own careers. His goal is to give each worker a share in the restaurant, so that “they’re working for themselves, as well as for the corporation.”

Once the restaurant is fully staffed and all the building’s quirks have been worked out, Fletcher plans to expand via food trucks and catering in town.

But in the meantime, he’s working long hours in order to give the business a good start, including a long commute, since he hasn’t been able to find a house in Morgan County yet. Fletcher said there have been times over the last month when he’s gone 10 days with eight hours of sleep. It’s all worth it, though, he said.

“I look at a restaurant like game day,” he said. “I’ve had weeks when…I feel like I can’t push it any further. But when I make that exit on Highway 34, I see that Shell (gas station) sign, and I turn and I see where I’m located, all of a sudden it’s Sunday afternoon, my teammates are counting on me and I got to find it.”

Stephanie Alderton: 970-867-5651 ext 227, salderton@fmtimes.com or twitter.com/slalderton