Denver's ReCyclery Café

By Sam Brasch

My first step into the ReCyclery Café caused a moment of gear-head geek out. Just about everything was once another man’s trash and, in most cases, that trash was a piece of a bicycle. Combination bike and coffee shops aren’t new in Denver, entrepreneurs have begun to realize they can squeeze everything Colorado cyclists want into one storefront: coffee, beer, quick healthy food, and a solid repair shop. The ReCyclerly Café in Denver’s thriving Capitol Hill neighborhood stands out among the pack.

Owners Brian Clees and Justin Worrel built the tables by taking old wheels, encasing them in concrete, and then coating them with a high-grade epoxy. The barista doesn’t slide your coffee to you over the counter; he swings it to you atop another bike wheel that has been refashioned into a Lazy Susan. Even the clocks are made from old gears and spokes.

Yet the aspect that makes the ReCyclery Café a treasure among Denver’s bike-coffee combos is the complete absence of any cyclist snobbery. As Clees