Audio By Carbonatix
When Amanda Bona, owner of Home Away Coffee at 3501 Blake Street, was deciding on a flavor for her coffee drink collaboration with Westword, she was thinking of you.
“I just imagined a Westword reader jumping on the train to DTC on their commute, with the drink in hand,” explains Bona.
The drink she pictured was a refreshing cold brew sweetened with brown sugar and cinnamon and topped with Home Away’s housemade vanilla bourbon cold foam. The drink, which launched June 5, is available for Westword members only (you can become a member for any amount, and a recurring member for as little as $7 a month). It will be available until the Westword-emblazoned to-go coffee cups run out.
Home Away Coffee opened last July, on the birthday of Bona’s mother. The cafe serves the usual coffee-shop fare but quickly became known for its unique latte flavors, including blueberry pancake and carrot cake.
Located near RTD’s 38th and Blake Street Station, the cafe operates in a well-lit, high-ceilinged space with a small patio and a roll-up garage door.
A self-proclaimed “passionate at-home barista,” she liked trying different roasts from craft roasters around the city. Inspired by the “hustle and bustle” of her father, who owns a transportation and logistics business in Chicago, she knew she had the makings of a business owner. “I thought that I had a similar personality,” she says.
Bona was inspired to open a coffee shop by her walks around RiNo. She and her now-husband lived across the tracks, and would cross RTD’s pedestrian bridge to go on a looping walk around RiNo. Every time she saw the vacant storefront surrounded by new buildings, she’d imagine a coffee shop there.
Bona wanted her place to serve great craft coffee and also be “approachable and accessible to people” and eschew the stereotypical coffee snobbery. Home Away serves quality craft coffee and uses housemade syrups; she encourages customers to ask questions about the process and product. “There are no so-called ‘silly’ questions,” she says.
She works only with local products, including Middle State Coffee out of the Santa Fe neighborhood, Bonfire Burritos in Golden, and Morning Fresh Dairy Farm in Bellvue.
Entering the coffee business has been a pleasant experience, and views other shops as community, not competition. “When we build each other up, we build Denver up as a coffee scene,” she says.
The Westword collab is not Bona’s first, and she hopes to do more. Her initial outing was with a local influencer who’d launched the clothing line Sunday Cherries. As soon as Bona heard the name, she envisioned a cold cherry latte with almond cold foam — and reached out to collaborate. She had to order the special cups 1,000 at a time and figured she’d have leftovers, but the drink sold out in two months. Customers were coming in, watching the pile dwindle and worrying they might not get another chance to order the drink.
“I love working with social media and hype around these collaborations,” Bona says. The drink or food she selects is based on the partner. “It should always make sense,” she says, not just be an item from the usual menu. That became clear with her second collaboration, a yogurt bowl inspired by a local fitness influencer who took part in creating the recipe.
She was inspired to work with Westword because she was looking for an unexpected partner. “I wanted to bridge two different communities,” she says. “It brings to light how community-centric Denver is.”
For this drink, she kept it simple — less “froofy,” she notes. The collab drink gave her the opportunity to bring back an old fan fave: brown sugar cinnamon syrup. Since Bona and her team make all the syrups in-house, they have to switch some out occasionally. But customers missed the sugar-cinnamon combo, and she saw the Westword drink as a sweet opportunity to bring it back.
“Don’t get me wrong, I like a froofy drink, but I wanted it to be simple, something familiar,” she explains, the way Westword is to its members. “I wanted the drink to make sense to Westword readers.”
Home Away Coffee is located at 3501 Blake St. and is open from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, visit homeawaycoffee.com. Learn more about Westword membership here.
