Moriarty cafe friends miss Bruce King

Former Gov. Bruce King had a knack for turning strangers into friends wherever he went.

Every morning for decades King went to El Comedór in Moriarty for his morning cup of coffee.

“From 8 to 9 o'clock you could always find them here," El Comedór owner and King’s long-time friend, Mike Anaya, said. "We'd solve all of the problems of the world, but sometimes they never got executed,”

King wouldn’t just come to have a cup of joe. He also came to meet and greet people from the moment he arrived until the moment he left.

“He would go to every booth and every table and shake hands,” Anaya remembered. “Then when he left, he went back and did the same thing in case somebody had come in and in case he missed somebody.”

The walls of the restaurant are filled with pictures of King.

His passing has hit Anaya and his wife, Mary, hard.

“It's certainly a shock, he was part of our family, we'd been very close,” Anaya said.

“Our daughter Mickey came over to the store and she started crying and said 'Bruce and Alice did so much for us',” Mary Anaya added.

Bruce’s brother, Don, stopped by their old stomping grounds Friday for lunch.

“It's kind of a sad day for our family on King Brother's ranch,” Don King told News 13. “We'll never be the same. There were three of us.”

Don King said his brother’s goal as governor was to leave New Mexico in better shape than when he found it.

“Bruce, he was unique," King said. "He accomplished a lot in his lifetime, and I think he did a lot for the people of New Mexico."

King’s death hit others around town, too.

King and his ranch workers often came by Broome’s Feed & Supply to stock up.

“He was very standup, very easy going,” owner Jeff Broome said. "If he had something to say he told you and really ran the governor's office back then with a lot of integrity."

Funeral services for King have not been announced yet.

Gov. Bill Richardson ordered flags be flown at half staff in King’s honor.