Specialty coffee shop Lilac Coffee is coming to Downtown Denver, opening in the plaza level of the Granite Tower on 1099 18th St., according to a business license application. The coffee shop is set to open in the next few weeks.
Lilac Coffee founder and Aurora native Josiah Kim started his business out of a love for Denver’s burgeoning coffee scene when he was in high school.
“I went to the very early, early openings of Corvus and Sonder and Sweet Bloom. I was just exposed to really good coffee early on, and I just couldn’t get my mind off of it,” Kim told What Now Denver. “In college, I was just grinding coffee with my hands, and my roommates would get mad, because I’m waking them up.”
In 2024, he took a risk on a building for sale in Park Hill and started Lilac Coffee. The small lilac-purple building on Colfax Ave. serves customers through a drive-thru window, offering a variety of options including its seasonal specialty coffee and its ever-present honey lilac latte, all built on Corvus coffee beans. Customers can also choose among a limited selection of sandwiches and pastries.
No stranger to limited space, Lilac’s second location in the Granite Tower will be 450 square feet. Operating in the spirit of the grab-and-go of their original drive-thru location, Lilac will feature the same coffee and specialty drinks of their original location, with potential modifications to the food offerings as the shop learns how to best serve this new community.
“I think with any service business, I think you really have to have a servant’s heart,” Kim says. “I get to serve more people, and have a chance at meeting more people, having more opportunities for other people to experience Lilac, the coffee, the customer service, our staff. So I’m really excited to for that next chapter.”
