Huckleberry Roasters adds two locations in Congress Park, Centennial

Local coffee chain Huckleberry Roasters is taking over a former Starbucks in Denver’s Congress Park and a former Peet’s Coffee in Centennial.

The shops at 801 Colorado Blvd. and 6751 S. York St. in the Streets at Southglenn will be the seventh and eighth stores for Huckleberry, which Koan Goedman co-founded in 2011.

“We’re motivated to keep growing, but intentionally and mindfully,” he said.

Goedman, whose company previously took over a former Starbucks on Larimer Square, said taking over spots that were already coffee shops “makes the interactions we need with the city way easier.”

“I can’t overstate how much of a game changer that is for us … You’re talking about something that can take weeks to a couple of months versus a year to years, plural,” he said.

The coffee entrepreneur is talking largely about Denver’s permitting process, which many businesses have complained is overly complex and time-consuming. Turnkey spaces need far fewer permits, which saves money as well as time, as contractors and architects aren’t necessarily needed.

Previous coffee shops often also come with a built-in customer base and the potential to hire the previous staff, Goedman said.

The Centennial location will be Huckleberry’s second outside Denver city limits, and the first in the southern suburbs.

Huckleberry is doing about $10 million in yearly revenue, up from $3 million entering the pandemic, Goedman said. About 65 percent of that comes from retail coffee shops, with the remainder attributable to wholesale and e-commerce sales out of the company’s warehouse in Athmar Park.

“It would take us a long time to max out limits on what we can produce there,” Goedman said of the warehouse.

The business invests most of its profits back into itself, and hasn’t raised money from outside investors, Goedman said. That could change in the future, but Goedman isn’t content for now.

“The longer we can hold onto it ourselves, the better,” he said.

Huckleberry’s landlord at the corner of 8th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard is The Robert L. Naiman Co., a Denver-based retail real estate firm. Noah Naiman, the son of the company’s founder, said Starbucks didn’t really explain why it opted to leave when its lease ended.

“They are a large company. They have different business goals … They just decided it was time to move out of the space for whatever reason it was,” Naiman said.

On a national level, in recent years Starbucks has been prioritizing locations with drive-thrus — something that the 1,600-square-foot location with 18 parking spots at 801 Colorado Blvd. lacked.

Naiman said his father, Rob, purchased the property nearly a quarter-century ago, when it was already a Starbucks. Howard Schultz had signed the lease.

“It’s kind of a fun little artifact,” he said.