Just because you’ve driven back to the city, doesn’t mean the après has to end.
That’s the mantra of Colorado-based ski and snowboarder manufacturer Meier, at least. The brand plans to open a bar attached to its workshop located on Broadway in Denver.
The bar has been built and integrated into its already-existing retail space, but plumbing work needs to be completed before it can open for business, according to The Denver Business Journal. The bar will be named The Couloir, and is set to open in the next three months.
“Winter comes around eventually. But if we can get them in early and incentivize people to buy and preorder through our bar, then we can offer them a smoking deal and get them fitted in their skis before the season even starts,” marketing director Michelle Kidd told DBJ.
Photo: Walter Bibikow/Getty Images
Meier uses trees from Colorado to make its skis and boards, so it only makes sense that it will focus on serving beer and wine from Colorado-based breweries and vineyards.
The company struck a deal with the Colorado State Forest Service, where founder Matt Cudmore’s brother worked, to use Colorado aspens and pine trees that have already been infested or killed by mountain pine beetles. That allows the trees to have a second life, and helps reduce the risk of wildfires, Kidd said to the DBJ.
The move is a great business decision, and one that has already been implemented in the northeast. Ski maker J Skis teamed up with clothing retailer Ski The East to open a half-bar, half-retail shop in Burlington, Vermont back in 2023.
“We have a ski town with four colleges where essentially kids come to ski and snowboard. We have Burton, the pioneer of snowboarding here. We’ve got six mountains within an hour. And there's nowhere with a ski or snowboard on the wall anywhere,” J Skis founder Jason Levinthal told Powder Magazine for a story in November 2024. “So I was just always like, there needs to be some sort of community space.”
The bar area has skis and snowboards from 40 years earlier on the wall, from all sorts of brands. It has the feel of a ski lodge, that just so happens to be miles away from the actual snowboarding itself. One TV only plays ski movies, and another has a Nintendo NES gaming system. You can even order a drink while you wait for your equipment to be tuned.
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