Denver Beer Co. rolled out its own in-house food truck last week. DBC Eats will be stationed Thursday through Sunday year-round at the brewery's original location on Platte Street, where it will dish out burgers, smoked wings and other fare all day and through the evening. The truck gives the brewery and its sister taproom, Cerveceria Colorado, another source of revenue, and offers customers a consistent source of grub.
DBC Eats is an extension of the company's kitchen at its new location, at 2425 South Downing Street, which opened in March, and means that the brewery now offers in-house dining at all three of its locations. (The Arvada taproom has an indoor Airstream trailer providing burgers and fries.)
"After we opened Downing, we realized that people really do enjoy that, they like to have something to eat," says DBC co-owner Patrick Crawford. "It elevates the whole experience."
Plenty of other breweries have come to that realization as well over the past few years, figuring out ways to offer permanent food options. They include Platt Park Brewing, which opened a deli next door; Odell Brewing, which runs a pizza kitchen at its Sloan's Lake taphouse; TRVE Brewing, where Music City Hot Chicken has an outpost inside; Prost Brewing, now with its own chef-driven menu and a new location in south Denver; and Black Shirt Brewing and Ska Brewing, which both converted their state licenses to brewpub licenses so that they could also get into the dining business.
But the new food truck is just part of a larger plan to expand the Platte Street mainstay. Earlier this fall, DBC and its landlord were finally able, after trying for six years, to buy half of the small spur of 17th Street that borders the northeast side of the taproom and dead-ends into the wall separating it from I-25.
As a result, the ten-year-old brewery hopes to begin construction (pending city approval) on a second large patio on 17th that will be accessed by two planned garage doors. Since that is also where DBC Eats is parked, it will give customers direct access to the food truck year-round, Crawford says.
In addition to elevated pub fare, DBC Eats, which has a full kitchen on board, will offer healthy and vegetarian options as well as occasional special or paired menus for the brewery and Cerveceria Colorado, including “Venga Viernes,” a Friday beer-and-taco special, and churros.