Colorado’s Bonfire Coffee is Stoked with Big New Roastery

Howard Bryman | June 17, 2026

Bonfire Coffee Owner Charlie Chacos at the new roastery. Photo by Shawn O’Connor Photography, courtesy of Bonfire Coffee.

Blazing an even brighter trail for specialty coffee in the Rockies, Colorado-based Bonfire Coffee recently cut the ribbon on a large new roastery and retail store in the rugged resort city of Glenwood Springs.

Bonfire celebrated the grand opening earlier this month inside the 2,250-square-foot facility, where production began in May about 25 miles north of Bonfire’s flagship cafe in the center of Carbondale.

Nearly twice the size of Bonfire’s previous off-site roasting space, the new roastery houses a Loring S15 Falcon roaster that expands capacity beyond the Diedrich IR12 that carried Bonfire to this point.

Photo by Shawn O’Connor Photography, courtesy of Bonfire Coffee.

In addition to more elbow room for roasting, Bonfire’s new production digs include space and equipment for training, quality control, green coffee storage and a wider spread for retail coffee and equipment sales.

“Our doors are now open to the public,” Bonfire Coffee Founder Charlie Chacos told Daily Coffee News. “While there is no cafe on site, the retail space is designed to be a paradise for home brewers.”

In the cupping and training lab, Philos and Super Jolly grinders by Mazzer join a Mahlkönig K30 grinder near a refurbished 2-group La Marzocco Strada MP. A Fetco batch brewer is on hand for drip coffee, while a Bunn tower keeps hot water flowing for cuppings and pourovers.

Drippers, kettles, scales, home espresso machines and other gear line the retail shelves, with customers welcome to stop in during open hours. Public tours are now available, and educational events, cuppings and tastings are planned.

Photo by Shawn O’Connor Photography, courtesy of Bonfire Coffee.

Chacos’ own passion for coffee was ignited in 1998 when he took over the Village Smithy restaurant founded by his parents in Carbondale, Colorado. One of his first moves was to upgrade the coffee program, an effort that boosted revenue as word spread and drew him deeper down the craft coffee rabbit hole.

In 2011, Chacos bought a Carbondale cafe called The Lift, located inside an old mercantile building with an early-1900s elevator still in place. Once used to lower potatoes into the building’s basement for storage, the elevator remains a historic element in the brick-and-wood space Chacos remodeled and rebranded as the Bonfire Coffee cafe.

The original Bonfire location in Carbondale. Photo by Shawn O’Connor Photography, courtesy of Bonfire Coffee.

Two years later, a merger with its roasted coffee supplier, Defiant Bean, transformed Bonfire into a full-service coffee company with its own roastery, online sales and wholesale business plus equipment sales and service. Bonfire was roasting in the former Defiant space until the recent relocation.

“This is a huge milestone for our 15-year-old company,” Chacos told DCN. “We finally have a space that aligns with our craft coffee brand.”