Exploring Life & Business with Brad Heykoop of Atlas Coffee

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brad Heykoop.

Hi Brad, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Atlas Coffee’s story begins in summer of 2016 with a desire to have a local gathering place in our neighborhood. As we explored the specialty coffee world, that passion to build community grew into a passion to also positively impact the communities where the coffee was grown and produced.

On regular visits to craft coffee shops around the Denver area we discovered the unique personalities of the communities in which they existed as well as the character of the owners and staff. We desired that for our neighborhood and when the opportunity arose, we purchased a small shop in the Ken Caryl area and re-branded it with a flavor that reflected that desire.

Through a serendipitous set of circumstances, we partnered with Corvus Coffee (a Denver-based roasting company with values similar to our own). We began to dig deep into the coffee world and now travel to origin regularly to find great people who are as passionate and intentional in their craft of producing great coffee as we are about delivering it to our communities back home. Through this relationship-focused coffee sourcing we have grown equally as passionate about their communities flourishing as we do our own.

With this vision and mission, we have since been invited to start up two additional shops in Sterling Ranch (2019) and on South Broadway (2021). We hope to have those communities influence the ethos of those shops while still holding to our core values.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
We are always evaluating how hold in tension the best interest of our customers, staff, producers, vendors and Atlas itself. There are not always clear-cut lines on how to do this.

As you can imagine the pandemic we have experienced over the last few years has provided us a unique set of challenges. The long and short of it is that our staff stepped up to the challenges and our customers did an incredible job of supporting us and keeping us in business during that time. For that, we are eternally grateful.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Atlas is a community-centered craft coffee shop focused on great service, great product and great space to gather. Atlas proudly partners with Corvus Coffee, a Colorado-based roaster who works directly with the best producers in coffee-producing regions around the globe, to provide high-quality premier crop to cup coffee.

In addition to extensive coffee and espresso options, Atlas serves other locally-sourced goods including loose leaf tea from iN-TEA; kombucha from Trubucha; pastries from BluepPoint Bakery and Wave the Grain Bakery (for allergy and gluten-free options); and Mame’s Burritos. We also offer a selection of delicious handcrafted sandwiches for dine-in or to-go.

Currently, we have three shops (all in Littleton): Ken Caryl, Sterling Ranch and South Broadway. We open at 6:00 during the week and 7:00 on weekends.

Any big plans?
We are currently wrestling with where we go next. When we first started, we only wanted to do the one shop and wanted to have fun with it without losing our shirts. Since then, we have found additional opportunities that we had not anticipated. We will continue to hold the future loosely….

Contact Info:

• Email: info@atlascoffees.com
• Website: www.atlascoffees.com
• Instagram: atlascoffees
• Facebook: atlascoffees