Felix Roasting’s Aspen Cafe Raises the Bar at High Elevation

Inside the new Phoenix Roasting Co. cafe in Aspen, Colorado. All images courtesy of Felix Roasting Co.

New York City-based Felix Roasting Co. has opened its third cafe, and first outside the Big Apple, in Aspen, Colorado.

With San Francisco-based designer Ken Fulk on board yet again, Felix is presenting its hallmark opulence alongside the 132-year-old architectural details on the ground floor of the historic Hotel Jerome.

The interior carries forward an aesthetic first created at the Felix Midtown Manhattan location, and later echoed in Soho.

In Aspen, framed vintage prints are juxtaposed with abstract modern pastel portraits by artist Jose Trujillo that are hung above light blue wainscoting. Beneath vintage pink Murano glass chandeliers and a lustrous gold stamped-tin ceiling, the Felix of the Rockies carries over the New York locations’ arabica coffee blossom wallpaper, as well as their tufted velvet and leather banquette seating.

New white oak flooring bolts outward in contemporary chevrons from a brass medallion at the center of the 710-square-foot space in which pioneering guests have sought a respite since the city’s original boom as a silver mining hotbed.

“We wanted to pay special attention to the iconic history of the space we were moving into while at the same time deliver on Felix’s unique offering,” Felix Roasting Owner Matt Moinian told Daily Coffee News. “Our signature wallpaper was hand-drawn by our design team. Our signature tables come from Paris, emblazoned with our arabica flower logo and a custom copper rim as well as lush banquette seating found in all of our cafes.”

Coffees served in Aspen are roasted in New York and then shipped to the peaks where they’re ground in a Victoria Arduino Mythos 2 grinder prior to extraction on a 2-group La Marzocco Linea espresso machine.

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The coffee menu includes drinks both traditional and indulgent. One example of the latter is the Honeycomb Lavender Latte, a concoction of a raw cacao and espresso-infused steamed sweet cream topped with a burnt honey and caramel honeycomb toffee web, garnished with fresh rosemary and lavender blossoms harvested from Hotel Jerome’s on-site garden.

While Aspen is new territory for Felix, it represents a romantic return for Moinian, a New York hotelier and real estate heir who got engaged to his wife on the Silver Queen gondola at the center of town on Christmas Eve several years ago.

Moinian told DCN that additional Felix cafes may soon come into life.

“We are always looking for exciting new locations and opportunities to share our vision with coffee lovers across the world,” said Moinian. “We are gearing up to open several new locations across the country and possibly internationally.”

Felix Roasting is open now at 103 S. Mill Street in the Hotel Jerome in Aspen. Tell us about your new coffee shop or roastery here.