LAKEWOOD, Colo. — The Gallery Sportsman Club and Range offers a restaurant and lounge within a firing range complex opens in Colorado.
The business features a restaurant, gun range, coffee bar, training center, and retail store.
Co-founders Megan Hymanson and David Grasa said they began thinking about starting this business years ago.
“We were at a friend's birthday party about two-and-a-half years ago, and we were at a shooting range. We didn't have the best experience and afterwards, we wanted a place to go have some drinks, have some food, but had to head all the way down the road,” Grasa said. “We just saw a spot in the market for it.”
Hymanson and Grasa said potential customers may be thinking: Alcohol and firearms don’t mix.
Hymanson said safeguards are in place.
“You surrender your ID to use the range, you get a badge that will allow you into the range. When you're done with the range, you get your ID returned to you,” Hymanson said.
The ID is also scanned to get a drink at the bar, before or after using the gun range. Hymanson said once a customer (or someone at the customer’s table) purchases an alcoholic beverage, that customer will be locked out of the range for 24 hours.
“It was a lot of work to build this place and we don't want to risk anybody’s safety,” Hymanson said.
The Gallery Sportsman Club has also partnered with mental health professionals who plan to use the business’s training center.
“Jefferson Center for Mental Health will be offering mental health first aid here,” Hymanson said. The Center will also provide suicide prevention training, a course Hymanson said all Gallery Sportsman Club employees have completed.
Hymanson said the reality is, people from all walks of life buy and try firearms.
“It doesn't need to be a political sport, it doesn't need to be only one type of person can shoot,” Hymanson said. “Maybe not everybody has a place where they feel comfortable that they can learn and get trained but they can do that here.”
Hymanson and Grasa said the Gallery Sportsman Club will offer memberships and discounts to first responders and essential workers.
Customers can also purchase hunting and fishing licenses from the business.
This story was first reported by Micah Smith at KMGHin Denver.
