{"id":35054,"date":"2023-03-25T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-25T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/esoterra-brings-flavor-to-new-durango-location\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:22:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:22:20","slug":"esoterra-brings-flavor-to-new-durango-location","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/esoterra-brings-flavor-to-new-durango-location\/","title":{"rendered":"EsoTerra brings flavor to new Durango location"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Taylor
Taylor Lennox Irwin, chief operations officer with EsoTerra Ciderworks, pours a glass of cider Tuesday at the tasting room\u2019s new location at 558 Main Ave. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

It was a hectic end to 2022 for EsoTerra Ciderworks owners Elizabeth Philbrick and Jared Scott, who had to leave their tasting room location at 934 Main Ave. in Durango.<\/p>\n

They had to move because they were subleasing the space from RV rental company Outdoorsy, which shut its doors in October. By Oct. 31, the cidery owners had to be out of their location between west Ninth and 10th streets.<\/p>\n

This left EsoTerra without a tasting room for over a month. Philbrick frantically searched all over Durango for a new location, sifting through the county assessor\u2019s website for property along Main Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing on Main Avenue is available on the market very long,\u201d Philbrick said. \u201cIf it does hit the market, it will get switched over to different people before you even see a sign go up.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a stressful period for the owners, who were concerned about helping their staff with employment. Philbrick even offered to pay staff members to babysit her kids while she went out and looked at new properties.<\/p>\n

\"EsoTerra
EsoTerra Ciderworks offers an expanded food menu now that it has a small kitchen at its new tasting room at 558 Main Ave. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

However, Mountain Monk Coffee closed its location at 558 Main Ave. on Nov. 7 \u2013 a former Starbucks location \u2013 according to a Facebook post by the coffee shop. This opened a space for EsoTerra. After calling around town, she was contacted by Amy Jackson of Jackson and Jackson LLC, who owned the building previously occupied by Mountain Monk Coffee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we realized what the space was, I openly wept in happiness,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In late November, EsoTerra announced through social media that it would take over the 558 Main Ave. location. The cidery\u2019s small team of employees went straight to work in an attempt to get the new tasting room open by Noel Night. On Dec. 15, the tasting room reopened and hosted several Southwest Colorado Accelerator Program for Entrepreneurs cohorts.<\/p>\n

Philbrick said it was a chance to gain exposure for the tasting room\u2019s new location while bringing attention to other local entrepreneurs. EsoTerra was also a SCAPE cohort in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to be able to provide some Main Avenue space for companies that are getting up off the ground through SCAPE,\u201d Philbrick said. \u201cWe were massively helped by entrepreneurship community in Durango, and that\u2019s really how we got up and off the ground in 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EsoTerra
EsoTerra Ciderworks, seen Tuesday, opened its new tasting room in December located at 558 Main Ave. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

While the new location has allowed for more visibility, Philbrick said the tasting room hasn\u2019t seen a major increase in customers. She says that is likely because the tasting room still does not have a sign and residents normally associate the southern part of downtown with tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve literally heard someone say, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s nothing to eat over there,\u2019\u201d Philbrick said.<\/p>\n

She was quick to point out all of the different options in the 500 block of Main Avenue, such as Sizzling Siam, Nini\u2019s Taqueria and EsoTerra, which upgraded its food menu since the move.<\/p>\n

As soon as the owners discovered they were moving into the new location, they made the trek to Denver and brought back a whole trailer\u2019s worth of kitchen equipment.<\/p>\n

EsoTerra was not able to serve many food options in its previous space because it lacked kitchen space.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we have a chef, and he\u2019s doing these just phenomenal sauces and jams that go on our charcuterie plates, baking fresh bread and we\u2019re now baking croissants in the morning,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"EsoTerra
EsoTerra owners Elizabeth Philbrick and Jared Scott turned the former coffee shop into a cider tasting room in about a month. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

EsoTerra may also begin opening in the mornings to offer espresso.<\/p>\n

With the move, the tasting room has added more employees, going from three to seven. Two of the employees also work at the Dolores location during the summer.<\/p>\n

The new tasting room also allows EsoTerra to host more events, which Philbrick says will help bring in more customers. The events will include live music, comedy nights and a drag queen brunch.<\/p>\n

She said hosting events was more difficult when EsoTerra shared a space with Outdoorsy because the owners had to get permission and make sure it was in line with Outdoorsy\u2019s messaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can be a little bit more risqu\u00e9 now and flexible,\u201d she said. \u201cIf someone calls me in an emergency and says, I\u2019ve got 50 people coming from out of town and nowhere to go, I can say, don\u2019t worry, I got you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weather permitting, EsoTerra was scheduled to set up its outdoor patio Wednesday. During the summer, the patio will feature a piano for live music performances.<\/p>\n

tbrown@durangoherald.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

\"EsoTerra
EsoTerra Ciderworks offers multiple bottled ciders at its new location at 558 Main Ave. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

the ability to host events and have food options made 500 block of Main Avenue an ideal choice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[924,431,314,950,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-35054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-alcohol","tag-business-general","tag-downtown-durango","tag-durango","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35064,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35054\/revisions\/35064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35054"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=35054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}