While traveling the globe for years as an in-demand freelance photographer, Fierberg has drawn inspiration from the coffee cultures of places from East Asia to the Americas. Hot Shot’s latest internationally inspired drink list is based on Bangkok, with delectable offerings like the fizzy pineapple espresso tonic with curry leaf and the Mango Fizz, which is written on the menu in Thai — an intentional gesture of honor to that culture. The Lil Duckling Slushee, a salted vanilla cold brew recipe created in collaboration with New York's Ugly Duckling Coffee, is a menu mainstay featuring coffee beans from Colorado-based Middle State Coffee, Hot Shot's exclusive coffee partner. Last month’s menu focused on the mighty flavors of Mexico City, with café de olla syrup and hibiscus-spiked cold brew.
“Coffee doesn’t have to be this global commodity. Coffee, like food, can be very regional and very local. It can tell a story," Fierberg says. "We want to work locally and be sustainable, but we also want to tell a story about what different localities taste and feel like. That’s important to us."
This month, two great sandwich slingers will pop up at Hot Shot. Odie B's (the Sunnyside restaurant formerly known as Bodega) is serving breakfast sandwiches and burritos on Saturday, August 24, starting at 9 a.m., and you can catch Motherboy, a side hustle from Andrew Booth and Andrew Van Stee of Molotov, starting at 10 a.m. on Sunday, September 1, and Sunday, September 15.
A local farmers' market and the Food Truck Rodeo will also be there on the final Tuesday and Wednesday of each month, respectively. And there's a Friday happy hour from 4 to 7 p.m., with deals on house wells, wines and beer.
Community building, local collaboration and creative approaches fuel the vision Armstrong and Fierberg have for their new business. Armstrong is a seasoned event planner and service industry veteran who worked in New York before coming to Colorado in 2018. Fierberg is a professional travel and food photographer with local clients such as Id Est Hospitality, which recently received the 2024 James Beard Award for Best Restaurateur as well as Michelin star honors in 2023 for its restaurants Basta, Brutø, the Wolf's Tailor and Hey Kiddo.
“It has been really cool to work with my partner,” Armstrong says. “A lot of this is very much his hospitality focus, and I am more on the event side and trying to work them symbiotically. It’s really cool doing a lot of things in a space where we’re working together and not just in tandem beside each other.”
Armstrong and Fierberg have combined creative forces to curate each month’s program schedule with Colorado collaborators, bringing new ideas to the old event space they named Dry Clean Only, a reference to the building’s former life as a laundromat. The laundry list of programming, depending on the week, includes fashion shows, baby showers, weddings, yoga or dance classes, live concerts, cinema clubs with ramen (sign us up!) and limited-run dinner events. The event space has a standing-room capacity of about 300 people.
“I’m really excited to see how this can play into the event space and those community events," Armstrong says. "We’re really trying to make it as active as we can with all of our pop-ups and all the events we are doing like the markets, mainly because impacting change when you are in the events industry is really limited. So how can we do something in this neighborhood that serves a purpose?”
“We are trying to just get really flexible and meeting people where they are and trying to find a way for them to use the space. It’s a really great spot that we want to share,” Fierberg adds.
The building itself, located a few blocks east of Cole neighbors Yacht Club (recent winner of best cocktail bar in the U.S.) and one of our top 100 restaurants, Brasserie Brixton, had been vacant for more than a decade before Armstrong and Fierberg took over the property in 2022. Hot Shot’s tall glass doors open to a quaint outdoor seating area with leafy landscaping and metal furniture, lending strong backyard vibes to its front patio area along York Street. Inside, the decor is clean and bright, with whitewashed brick walls and glazed cement floors creating a backdrop of raw textures for the sleek and shimmery coffee bar that beams with an aura of futuristic chic.
Dry Clean Only holds up to 300 people and hosts a series of public events each month.
Photo by Jeff Fierberg
The intersection is a mini-hub of commerce, and also, Fierberg notes, an opportunity to engage with the neighborhood. “Everybody here is excited to have another space in the neighborhood, excited to have a building not just sitting derelict. People generally like what we are doing here. Every day we see new people," he says.
Armstrong says her favorite part of running the business so far has been getting to know and connecting with people who come to the events or visit the coffee shop, and she feels those rewarding experiences are made possible by keeping the space accessible to everyone, beginning with reasonable prices for Hot Shot's quality house brew.
“Our drip is $2. This neighborhood is important for us to serve and be a part of. I don’t want us to be an out-of-touch coffee shop," she says.
Fierberg explains that running a volume business such as a coffee shop faces challenges similar to those of restaurants, like keeping prices at a certain affordability level while covering operational and labor costs and still maintaining a profit. “With coffee shops, there’s a societal pressure on keeping that [price] low. And that’s okay," he says.
"We want things to be approachable, but it is very difficult to run a business with a low ticket price," he continues. "It has really come down to being able and willing to try new things, listen to the market, listen to our gut and let that dictate what we want to do. You've just got to be flexible.”
Flexibility is a mantra for Armstrong and Fierberg as they navigate the nature of their mutual businesses. Striking a balance between providing seasonal and regional ingredients in Hot Shot’s drinks while offering them at an affordable price can be challenging, as is taking full advantage of the event space. But in its first three months of business, and with an innovative series of events, Armstrong and Fierberg have succeeded in bringing together their core intentions of collaboration, creativity and community.
“Our goal is to make a fun and approachable space that does things a little bit weird and a little bit off and maybe opens perspectives up a little bit. And just have fun,” Fierberg concludes.
Hot Shot Coffee is located at 3358 York Street and is open from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily. For more information, follow @hotshotdenver and @dcodenverevents on Instagram.
