Queen City Collective Coffee Is Focused on Growth as It Debuts Fifth Location

Queen City Collective Coffee now has five locations as its latest outpost opens at 1675 Larimer Street today, August 26.

The company's founders, brothers Luke, Scott and Eric Byington, got their start in coffee while traveling and working in Africa in the early aughts. Their passion for single-origin coffee and building equitable partnerships with farmers inspired them to launch Queen City as a coffee roastery in 2016.

The newest shop, which is located in the lobby of a downtown office building, is Queen City's third addition this year. In March, we reported that the business was moving out of its original location inside Novel Strand Brewing and into Town Hall Collaborative nearby.

At the end of June, Queen City took over Devil's Cup in Berkeley. While Devil's Cup still remains in Littleton, co-owner Alex Brahl, who also owns a local music management firm, decided to downsize in order to focus on the music side of things and approached Queen City about taking over the operation at 4999 West 44th Avenue. "We’re not over in that neighborhood, and we love the vision for that space," says Scott Byington. "They're working hard to get the actual theatre turned into a cool community space, and we love being an anchor tenant around the corner."

Since it was already a fully equipped coffee shop, the turnaround was quick. "We didn’t want to close down for a long time because we wanted to retain as many of [the staff that were there]," Byington notes. "We committed to doing it fast for the customer base — we didn’t want to lose routine regulars, and didn’t want employees to be without income, so we did it as quick as possible to take care of them."

The 44th Avenue space shut down for just one day to paint and change the branding to match the aesthetic of the other Queen City locations. "The biggest transition was getting to be coffee-focused versus latte-focused," Byington says. "[Devil's Cup] had a lot of different syrups and lattes — we do more house-made syrups and our focus is on single-origin coffee." Devil's Cup also had a more expansive food menu, which has remained.

Queen City also has a shop inside Gold's Marketplace in Lakewood and a standalone outpost in Five Points.

"The landlords [at the new location on Larimer Street] wanted to revitalize the lobby and entrance, and so they built out a coffee space and asked us to come in," says Scott Byington. While the team expects a solid customer base of corporate employees who work in the building and nearby, the shop "will be open to the public, and there’s plenty of seating. ...It’s a full cafe — it's warm and inviting," he assures.

In addition to serving Queen City coffee, the business continues to partner with Pandemic Donuts for sweet treats as well as grab and go breakfast sandwiches. The downtown location also serves Bonfire burritos and an expanded lunch menu in collaboration with Spruce Confections.

Byington credits Queen City's growing success to a number of factors, including shared responsibilities between the brothers and the support of their staff — which now includes around 35 employees. "Each shop is unique and we try to treat each location as an opportunity to engage with community around that shop," he says. "Our baristas do a good job connecting with our regulars. We are trying to be connected and genuine and real with all of it."

He adds, "We definitely want to get a handful more shops in the metro area. Denver’s coffee scene and the culture around coffee can support more locations. We're not looking to saturate, but we'd love to have two or three more shops in the metro area, then explore things from there."

And, according to Byington, the market for specialty coffee in Denver has only grown since Queen City launched. "People are attracted to quality coffee. We don’t skimp on the quality of coffee and we pay our farmers well. Since the beginning, we've been buying quality green coffee and roasting with intention," he concludes.

Queen City recently participated in a pilot project using blockchain technology application Bext360, which tracks global supply chains for sustainability and transparency. Producers products such as palm olive oil, cocoa and coffee self-report about each individual crop. Consumers of products utilizing the app can scan a QR code and learn about the farmers, when the beans were picked and shipped, and how much they were sold for.

Queen City Downtown is located at 1675 Larimer Street and is open from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For more information, visit queencitycollectivecoffee.com.