Colorado coffee history, decade by decade

Colorado coffee history in one paragraph

Colorado's coffee history is a roasting history. The earliest dated roaster in our research is Boyer's Coffee, started in a Denver garage in 1965. Boulder began roasting its own specialty coffee around 1980, Durango followed in 1984, and the 1990s brought roasters to ski towns and the Western Slope. After 2010 came a wave of small craft roasters, several of which now win national awards. The Roast Local directory counted 181 independent roasters in the state in September 2026.

Everything below carries a date that a source confirms. Where we could not find a date, we left the story out, so this is a record of what is documented, not a complete history. Denver itself dates to 1858 and the gold rush, according to Wikipedia, but we found no sourced account of coffee roasting in the state before the 1960s.

1965 to 1989: garages, a bookshop and a bakery

1965, Denver. Bill Boyer founded Boyer's Coffee and roasted at home at first. The company later moved into the old Washington Street School, built in 1927.

1977 and 1980, Boulder. The Brewing Market opened in 1977. After it opened a second shop in 1980 it started roasting its own beans, which the record credits as the first freshly roasted specialty coffee sold in Boulder.

1984, Durango. Durango Coffee Company began wholesaling roasted beans on May 1, 1984, and is the oldest roaster we list. The southwest Colorado page tells that story.

1985, Boulder. Jeffrey Cohn started Allegro Coffee Company as an importer, roaster and wholesaler. Wikipedia records that Whole Foods Market bought Allegro in 1997. It still roasts in Thornton, but under that ownership it is no longer an independent roaster.

The 1990s: a Denver chain and the mountain roasters

In 1990 Bill Tointon started Peaberry Coffee in Denver. Wikipedia describes a coffee shop chain built on its own roasting, with four house styles it called the Peaberry Profile System: Light and Mild, Rich and Creamy, Extravagant and Exotic, and Dark and Intense. The same year, Carl Rand split Durango Coffee Company into retail and wholesale halves and moved roasting to the Durango Tech Center.

The rest of the decade belongs to small roasters outside Denver:

• 1992: Looney Bean began roasting in Montrose.
• 1993: Al Smith started serving coffee in Crested Butte from a winter cart at the Mt. Crested Butte bus stop, where mornings can drop to 40 below. It grew into Camp 4 Coffee. The same year Cafe Richesse settled in Fort Collins and Elevation Coffee Traders began roasting in Colorado.
• 1995: High Rise Coffee Roasters started roasting in Old Colorado City, and Craig Conner opened Pablo's Coffee in Denver.
• 1996: brothers Tony and Leo Yuffa opened DAZBOG Coffee in Denver. Mel and Mark, two baristas from the mountains, owned a roaster and a few wholesale accounts by then; that business is Conscious Coffees. Steamboat Coffee Roasters became Steamboat Springs' first roaster that year too. Its own site now says production has moved to Houston, Texas.
• 1998: Kind Coffee started roasting in Estes Park.

The 2000s: air roasters, a blind roaster and the sun

In 2000 Mark Overly and Andrew Melnick opened Kaladi Coffee Roasters on East Evans Avenue. They roast with hot air in a fluid bed, following the method of the engineer Michael Sivetz. Two years later Jake, Joe and Herb Brodsky founded Novo Coffee in Denver.

2003 brought two stories from the south and west. The Bixler family founded Mission Coffee Roasters in Colorado Springs to fund Christian missionaries. In October, the founders of Colorado Legacy Coffee stayed in Grand Junction after their motor home broke down there.

2004 was a busy year. In Boulder, Gerry Leary, blind since birth, founded The Unseen Bean. Wikipedia records that he trained in roasting in San Francisco, judged his roasts by smell and sound, and opened a retail cafe in March 2007. Our own check found the business closed. In April, Colorado Coffee Merchants started in Colorado Springs with an 8 lb fluid bed roaster and three bags of green coffee. The Bean Cycle began in Fort Collins as a small family roastery. And Solar Roast began roasting with solar energy, moving its roaster to Pueblo in 2007.

Justin Hartman founded OZO Coffee in Boulder in 2007. Two years later, in September 2009, Peaberry closed all of its corporate stores, according to Wikipedia, after years of weak sales and legal costs.

The 2010s: the craft roasters arrive

2010 is the year Colorado's current roaster map took shape. Phil Goodlaxson started Corvus in Denver. Vajra and Cara Rich started Boxcar in Boulder, roasting for restaurants before they had a cafe. Brandon DelGrosso and a friend began Switchback in a Colorado Springs garage on an eight pound roaster. Eric Yochim opened Two Rivers Coffee in Arvada.

The next few years, in brief:

• 2011: Koan Goedman and Mark Mann founded Huckleberry Roasters in Denver.
• 2013: Andy Sprenger founded Sweet Bloom in Lakewood; Matt Kurgan and Amanda Krenn founded Pangea Coffee Roasters in Grand Junction.
• 2014: Legends Coffee began at the Southlands Farmers Market in Aurora, and Flattop Coffee Roastery started in Estes Park.
• 2015: Dark Heart rolled out a handbuilt cart in downtown Loveland in March; Octopus Coffee opened on Horizon Drive in Grand Junction in February; Kurt Hans left private equity to start Ampersand in Gunbarrel.
• 2016: the Byington brothers filed the papers for Queen City Collective Coffee in August; Wander Coffee opened a Fort Collins roastery in November; Color Coffee Roasters opened its flagship in Eagle; and Stephen Holmes started Peregrine in Kathmandu, Nepal.
• 2017: six baristas opened Loyal Coffee in downtown Colorado Springs in October; Blue Sparrow opened on Blake Street; John and Delmy Mattos started Garden Coffee Co. in Lakewood; Big Iron Coffee began roasting in Steamboat; Dark Heart moved from cart to storefront in June.
• 2018: Peregrine's whole operation settled into a converted chicken house in Westcliffe; Lima Coffee Roasters started in Fort Collins; Octopus added a Crested Butte shop.
• 2019: Jay DeRose opened Middle State on Santa Fe Drive on May 31; Sweet Bloom and Two Rivers combined under the Sweet Bloom name.

National awards followed in 2019. Roast Magazine named Boulder's Dragonfly Coffee Roasters its Micro-Roaster of the Year, and Huckleberry's head roaster Shelby Williamson won the U.S. Roaster Championship.

The 2020s: recognition

Tami Canaday founded Wagon Coffee in Denver in 2020 to employ women in recovery. Mane Brew Coffee started in Pueblo the same year, and It's Coffee opened in Centennial. Durango's Desert Sun Coffee Roasters won the Specialty Coffee Association's 2020 Sustainability Award in the business model category.

In 2022 Roast Magazine named Huckleberry its Macro Roaster of the Year. In May 2024 Durango Coffee Company marked 40 years in business. On September 14, 2024, the first Colorado Coffee Show took place at the Gaylord Rockies Convention Center in Aurora, with workshops and competitions for roasters and cafes.

At the 2026 Global Coffee Awards, U.S. and Canada edition, Sweet Bloom was named Best Roaster and Fort Collins' Lima Coffee Roasters took a gold medal in the washed filter category.

What the dates add up to

Almost every roaster in this story started small and local: a garage, a cart, a bakery back room, a first account at a bookshop. They lasted because people nearby kept buying. Peaberry's closing in 2009 is the other half of the lesson; a roaster needs customers to stay open. Buying a bag from a Colorado roaster pays for the next chapter of this timeline. Why local roasters matter.

Sources

• Wikipedia, Denver (founding in 1858, gold rush)
• Wikipedia, Peaberry Coffee (1990 founding, Profile System, 2009 closures)
• Wikipedia, The Unseen Bean (2004 founding, training, 2007 cafe)
• Wikipedia, Whole Foods Market (Allegro purchase, 1997)
• Roast Local, roaster counts by state, September 2026
• Roast Magazine, 2022 Macro Roaster of the Year feature on Huckleberry Roasters (2019 U.S. Roaster Championship, 2022 award)
• Westword, report on the first Colorado Coffee Show, 2024
• Other dates: the roasters' own history pages (Boyer's, Durango Coffee Company, DAZBOG, Kaladi, Novo, Mission, Colorado Legacy, Colorado Coffee Merchants, The Bean Cycle, Solar Roast, Switchback, Sweet Bloom, Pangea, Legends, Flattop, Octopus, Dark Heart, Wander, Garden Coffee Co., Big Iron, Lima, Dragonfly, Desert Sun, Kind Coffee, Looney Bean, High Rise, Cafe Richesse, Elevation Coffee Traders) and a Thornton business profile of Allegro and The Brewing Market, as recorded in our research, September 2026. Roasters we list: our roaster profiles, checked 2026-09-27.