With sales lagging after a tough summer of fires and floods and the opening of a competing business next door, the Irish Embassy Pub has pulled the plug on the Steaming Bean coffee shop that operated in its basement.
Sales at the shop, 900 Main Ave., were hurt in October 2017 when Animas Chocolate Co. opened next door offering similar hot coffees, teas and chai, and the business took a further blow with slow sales during the 416 Fire, said Brad Taylor, general manager of the Irish Embassy Pub.
“It was getting to the point where it just wasn’t working out,” Taylor said. “Our revenues were way down. Summer hit us hard.”
The Irish Embassy Pub, he said, will continue serving Steaming Bean coffee and all other drinks offered downstairs when the coffee shop was in operation. Breakfast also is now being served at the pub from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
The Irish Embassy Pub has plans to use the downstairs space, but Taylor said he is not yet ready to reveal those plans.
“It will definitely be a place to get a cocktail and food,” he said.
Until the new space is remodeled and reopened, Taylor said the basement will continue to host folk music on Tuesdays, bluegrass jams on Wednesdays and its “Laugh Therapy” comedy show on the third Thursday of the month.
The Steaming Bean had been a staple across the street at 915 Main Ave. from the early 1990s until March 2016 when its former owner Erica Fendley filed for bankruptcy protection.
Fendley had planned to close the coffeehouse back then but was given a reprieve when Irish Embassy Pub owner Mike Graham allowed her to move the shop across the street to his basement.
parmijo@durangoherald.com
