Snowy Elk Coffee Expands its Range with Roastery in Cheyenne, Wyoming

Inside the new Snowy Elk roastery in Cheyenne, Wyoming, which includes space for barrel-aged coffees and a classroom. All images courtesy of Snowy Elk Coffee Co.

Specialty coffee roasting company Snowy Elk Coffee Co. has found much more space to roam inside a new roastery and warehouse in a 2,500-square-foot space in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Founded in 2017, the business relocated this summer, giving its Diedrich IR-2.5 and IR-12 roasters additional space alongside a small customer area near the main entrance, a classroom area and barrels for treating green coffee.

“Our warehouse is just a roasting and manufacturing facility, so we are just selling whole bean coffee and merchandise from the storefront,” co-founder Julie Gonzar told Daily Coffee News. “However, we will have a coffee lab and classroom space within the warehouse for tours, private tastings, demos, etc.”

Julie and Scott Gondzar have nurtured Snowy Elk through online sales and a wholesale business, while offering bags of beans direct to customers through delivery and a presence at farmers’ markets. The roaster offers single-origin coffees and blends with names that invoke the outdoorsy life of Wyoming, such as The Angler, Campfire, and Basecamp, the latter taking home a bronze medal from the 2019 Golden Bean North America roasting competition.

“Scott’s background is microbiology and brewing, so he has a lot of experience that translated well into roasting coffee,” Julie Gondzar said, noting that coffees are primarily sourced through Colorado-based importer Cape Horn Coffees.

As Snowy Elk continues to grow, it also keeps the best interests of the rest of the herd at heart. The company last year created the Snowy Elk Foundation, a nonprofit whose goal is to provide scholarships for outdoor recreational education, aviation education and music education.

“We have a strong philosophy about exploring outdoor adventure, said Gondzar, “and we’ve always wanted Snowy Elk to become a vehicle to help others and the community, and the foundation has been our way of providing that.”