Decades of Purdue memorabilia up for sale as Bruno's Pizza and Big O's Sports Room closes

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.— While the last pizzas and Bruno dough made their way out the door of Bruno's Pizza and Big O's Sport's Room Wednesday afternoon, the real work began Thursday morning as Orlando Itin oversaw the dismantlement of his decades-worth of Purdue sports memorabilia enshrined in the restaurant.

Orlando, co-owner of Bruno's pizza alongside his siblings Bruno Jr. and Tina, announced Wednesday morning to the public that the afternoon shift for the restaurant would be their last, closing to make way for a major apartment development in the Brown Street area. What followed was a flood of memories posted across social media of patrons and employees who passed through Bruno's doors over the years, thanking the Itin family for their service to the community, and most importantly for all the memories.

Now, after the dough had run out, and all that remained were some olive jars and seasoning mixes in the basement, Orlando was directing traffic around the Big O's Sports Room, where a group of his friends were working speedily with power drills in hand to disassemble sports displays and remove the memorabilia mounted on the walls.

Organizing the items onto tables spread around the dining area, Orlando explained that while he's not kept it a secret that he plans to sell items from the Big O's Sports Room collection, he won't be selling everything. Much of his Drew Brees, Gene Keady and rings collections will come home with him.

"I'd say I probably have 25 to 30 Purdue rings. Those are a novelty to have. I have one given to me by coach Keady, so they're personal to me," Orlando said. "When we put all this stuff in here, I never thought about taking it down."

But everything has to be out of the restaurant by Feb. 22, Itin explained, when liquidators come to sell off the restaurant equipment and tables and chairs. All of the Swiss artifacts collected on shelves and in the bar area of the restaurant will be donated to a Swiss heritage museum in Wisconsin, Orlando said. While there wasn't much merchandise branded with the Bruno's Pizza logo, Orlando and his family gave away menus to patrons and friends who sought to get one last pizza in during Wednesday's final shift.

Much of the local memorabilia from high school athletes who went on to play for Purdue and go pro, such as Kansas City Chiefs defensive end George Karlaftis and MLB pitcher Bob Friend, will be donated to the West Lafayette Public Library to be curated into a local exhibit, Orlando said. But before anything comes home with him or anything gets marked for sale, Orlando said he has offered everyone who's given him a piece of their memorabilia an opportunity to take something back.

'It's a family'

Tim Balensiefer, father of former Purdue volleyball player Grace Balensiefer and Florida International volleyball player Ashlyn Balensiefer, made the trip to the restaurant Wednesday, drill in hand, to take some of his daughters' signed memorabilia home with him. Both daughters worked at Bruno's at different times, Balensiefer said, making it special for them to have their photos hanging on the walls alongside other famous athletes.

Taking a break on a stool seated beside the larger-than-life Drew Brees bobblehead, which will be donated to Follett's Bookstore on Purdue's campus, Orlando scrolled through the vast list of contacts on his phone, working to make calls to former athletes to see if they had any interest in retrieving an item that was formerly theirs. Watching families, like the Balensiefers, walk out of the restaurant with items belonging to them was what Orlando said he'd hoped would come out of Bruno's closure.

"That's the fun part of it all; when you can give back to the people who've given to you all through the years," Orlando said. "This really is like a family — the athletes I've been involved with and the coaching staff. People love to give me stuff, and I love to give back to them."

Earlier that morning, Orlando said he'd had the chance to speak with his old friend, Gene Keady, who was on his way back to Purdue's campus for the big Purdue men's basketball game versus Indiana University on Saturday in Mackey Arena. Out of all the memories on the walls of Bruno's Pizza, Orlando said Keady only requested one thing.

"He wants a cuckoo clock," Orlando said.

While he's made outgoing calls to former athletes, Orlando said over the past week he'd also heard from a number of current Purdue athletes, wondering where their new weekly hang out would be, or just simply asking if he was doing OK.

"After 67 years, for me, so many people have touched our lives, and we've touched their lives," Orlando said. "It's always been amazing to me when you go on vacation someplace, you always run into someone who knows something about Purdue, and if you ask them if they'd ever had any pizza around campus, they always knew about Bruno's. The world is big, but it's very small."

Decades of collecting gone within hours

Since the Itin family moved the Bruno's restaurant into the 212 Brown St. location in 1998, Orlando said he'd never seen it so empty.

All that remained on the walls going into Thursday afternoon were outline stains from where framed photos and news articles once hung, exposing the darker cream color originally painted behind them.

"The easiest part was getting all this down and off the walls," Orlando said. "Now I have to figure out what we're going to price everything at as well as what all I'm going to sell."

It can't all come home with him, Orlando said. He knows that much, as his home holds an equally large collection of Purdue memorabilia, as well as Cincinnati Reds memorabilia. His collecting days began in the mid 1960s, he said, when as a kid Orlando chased down Purdue football legend Leroy Keyes after a game.

"They used to walk through the stadium to go to the locker room years ago, which kids still do this today, but Leroy gave me his chin strap," Orlando said. "The collection here at the restaurant is more of a tribute to everyone who's ever come in here because what I would tell them is that if they didn't come back in here, I would take their picture off the wall. So it was like a promise to come back."

But Orlando knows how to price this stuff. That experience comes from co-owning Railsplitters Authentics, LLC, which hosts Purdue memorabilia shows twice a year in the Greater Lafayette area, Orlando said. Additionally Railsplitters Authentic hosts local signing events for fans to meet past and present athletics figures and have their merchandise signed.

Denny Hickman, a friend of Orlando's for the past 40 years, was at the restaurant on Thursday, helping to organize the memories being torn from the walls. To see the restaurant empty, he said, was strange, but helping his friend pack away this part of his life was a small way for him to say his thanks for the memories.

"For the last two years when Orlando would come in at 10 a.m. to turn the ovens on and start the book work, I would come in and sit right here in the entry way and we would just talk for an hour or so," Hickman said. "It's always been sports, sports, sports. But if you point to any single item in this whole place, Orlando can tell you the entire story behind it and then some more."

What comes next

With everything being either sold, donated or liquidated, the chance for a new Bruno's Pizza location in the future leaves one simple question: What would it look like?

Bruno Itin Jr. said while he can't comment on any potential real estate his family has looked at or a potential timeline, he envisions a new restaurant would be on a smaller scale and a simpler operation compared to the 268 seating operation the Brown Street restaurant maintains.

"I love what I do, but I'm tired of all of it," Bruno Jr. said with a laugh.

Any plans for a restaurant moving forward will be up to Bruno Jr. and all six of Bruno Sr.'s granddaughters, Orlando said, as he has chose to step away from the restaurant business. His focus now is getting everything out of the restaurant.

Knowing the sizable crowd a Purdue memorabilia sale of this size could attract, Orlando said he's gathered a group of friends and family to work "security" for the big Feb. 17 sale, which will be held at the restaurant from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Until then, Orlando will be pricing items out, wondering if collectors would even be interested in items signed specifically "to Orlando," among the dozens of mini helmets, signed photos, tickets, jerseys, signed Purdue basketballs and other sports memorabilia.

"I'm overwhelmed after taking it all down," Orlando said. "The thing is, if people don't buy this, then I've got to figure out where to put it all."

Jillian Ellison is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. She can be reached by email at jellison@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @ellison_writes.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Vast Purdue sports collection up for sale after Bruno's Pizza closes