Ballpark Brewery Taproom Adds Morning Coffee Shop to Boost Business

On any given morning, the seats in a brewery typically sit empty. But at Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery's taproom, at 1139 20th Street, the place is often full of early-morning guests sipping a different sort of beverage — coffee. Slackline Coffee opened inside the downtown taproom in April, filling the relative void of good coffee in the area.

Jagged Mountain owners Randy Stinson and RJ Banat realized that their prime real estate in the Ballpark neighborhood was being underutilized. “We pay rent 24 hours a day, but only sell beer 8 hours a day,” says the brewery's general manager Chad Bratt, who is also co-owner of Slackline. “We wanted to utilize the space we already pay rent on to fill that day with more revenue; something in the morning, but also something non-alcoholic. We are dipping into a different market that most breweries don’t have and introducing coffee fans to breweries.”

Jagged Mountain celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, and for nearly its entire run, it’s used Ozo Coffee, cacao nibs and lactose to brew one of its Trailhead Beers, a blonde stout. So when the idea of adding a coffee shop arose, Ozo was the obvious choice.

“When we opened it up, we wanted to keep it kind of similarly outdoor-themed. [Jagged Mountain] is named after a mountain down in the San Juans, so we wanted to keep it in line with that,” says Bratt. “We love getting outside, exploring and doing the Colorado activities.”

Ozo helped develop several blends of coffee for Slackline, all with adventure-based names, like Stoke, a medium blend used for drip, and Highline for espresso.
In addition to standard coffee drinks, Slackline offers a few food options, like Bonfire breakfast burritos. Wednesday through Friday, Pastry Runner pops up in the space as well, with three to four pastry varieties available first come, first served until sold out.

Bratt says that the ultimate goal is to help other breweries replicate this model, in a scaled-down version. “Not everybody has 100 to 150 square feet to give up in their space, but they can still use our model. There’s a lot of breweries facing what we did,” he says. "One of the challenges we're up against is lack of traffic downtown — for both sides of our business and other businesses around."

The taproom offers seating for up to 120 people, plus wi-fi, meaning it's often less crowded than a typical coffee shop, making it the perfect space for an off-site meeting.

“We’re treating [coffee] with the same amount of effort and care as we do beer,” says Bratt. “We were able to adapt some things we’ve learned over the years as a brewery, but we’re just trying to move a different liquid now in a different way.”

Slackline Coffee is located at 1139 20th Street and is open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily (the brewery opens at noon, giving customers a two-hour overlap to get a beer or coffee, though nitro cold brew and iced tea are always on tap). For more information, visit slacklinecoffee.com.