Check Out Brittany Bartlett’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittany Bartlett.

Brittany, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve been in the restaurant industry for the better part of my life, starting at 15 as a busser at the Old Louisville Inn (now 740 Front Street). I’ve managed and bartended in South Florida and in Colorado.  Coming back to Colorado, I found myself near my old stomping grounds and wanted to get involved in bringing together the Louisville community.

I wanted to be a part of creating a restaurant experience where the community can gather together and feel at home inside our restaurant or within our adjacent beer garden area. We are family-friendly, celiac-safe, and dietary aware.  We plan events every month for the whole community to help develop togetherness, which has included search and rescue dog events, holiday events, and our first ever Celiac Awareness Month Event.  These events are free for the community and include live music, games, inflatables, crafts, and so much more.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We started after a pandemic and got into an environment of uphill battles.  The only easy part for us was staying focused on our original intentions and goals with diving into Rocky Mountain Tap, which was to become part of our community, contribute to the rebuilding of our community after the Marshall Fire, and create a place we all would be proud to visit. The biggest challenges in any business we’ve experienced is people, both your team and those they serve. From the inside, it’s creating culture and mentoring the right way.  For our supporters, its trying to fulfill and exceed their expectations.

It’s challenging to hold onto people in the service industry because it is hard work, stressful and it only takes a few rough moments to turn a mindset into a landslide. Supporting staff in this industry is highly dependent on the “tipping” mentality, which is a difficult region to navigate. You want to do more, but there is that fine balance between maintaining a business trajectory that keeps doors open and providing your team enough to live on in these areas.

We also took over a failed business, which we recommend anyone who would be considering a similar situation to do twice as much due diligence than you think. Rebuilding vendor relationships, clearing unknown liabilities, dealing with previous owners, staff, and customers is all very challenging to get through while developing your own set of identity and culture.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We have an amazing team and leadership group that wants to see everyone develop both as employees with responsibilites and skilsets, and to be good people within their community. We have a multifaceted management that works well together utilizing their core strengths.  I am the Operations Manager, focused on the day to day experience for our staff and patrons.  This includes event design and execution, marketing directions, product selections, staffing, and so much more.

For me, I bring a specialty in craft cocktails and event planning. Combining all of our strengths and tapping into our employees to develop theirs has created a truly fun and caring place to work. We have even had our patrons volunteer at our events because they believe in what we are trying to accomplish. At the end of the day, we are all working together to provide a fun and comfortable place to share time together, share a crafted meal and drink, and build our community.

What does success mean to you?
You could ask 10 different people what success means to them and likely it will be different, but there always seems to be an underlying wealth aspect to it. For our team, success is building a community anchor that people enjoy being a part of, both within and as a customer.

To keep the doors open is another metric of success, because that is no easy task. Day to day management is necessary to provide a path to stay in business in this industry. All that said, we feel we’re lucky enough to set our main definition on finding joy in what we do. I love my job, and I love being a part of a team that feels the same way.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rockymountaintap.com
• Instagram: @Tapngarden
• Facebook: www.Facebook.com/tapngarden