Teton Gravity Research opens first Colorado shop in Boulder

BOULDER — Teton Gravity Research, the Wyoming-based outdoor sports and adventure lifestyle, media and apparel company, is opening its first Colorado location this month on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. 

“Our goal from the outset when we launched in 1995 was to be the premier action sports and adventure lifestyle brand,” TGR co-founder Steve Jones told BizWest. “That encompasses everything from our films, our digital content, one of the largest online communities in action sports,” as well as branded merchandise and retail stores. 

Teton Gravity Research leaders have long looked to Colorado for an expansion of its brick-and-mortar operations, Jones said, and when the opportunity to move onto the mall at 1420 Pearl St., formerly home to a Whole Sol Blend Bar, came knocking, TGR jumped at the chance.

“Colorado has always been one of our biggest and most enthusiastic markets in terms of online sales and our film tour,” he said. The Centennial State “is such a good fit for TGR because it’s such an action sports-oriented place. That lifestyle is so organic to Coloradans, and Boulder is really an epicenter for that.”

TGR has always had a merchandise line, but prior to about eight years ago, when the company’s first shop opened in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, gear was mostly sold online and through other retailers around the Rocky Mountain region.

The first shop was roughly 800 square feet. The Boulder shop, TGR’s sixth brick-and-mortar location, will be more than triple that size at 2,700 square feet.

The Pearl Street location — set to open on June 30, “whether our crew’s ready for it or not,” Jones joked — features a 25-seat theater that will screen TGR video productions and can be rented for private events.

While Boulder is TGR’s first Colorado outpost, it won’t likely be its last.

“I absolutely do” think that additional Colorado locations could be on the horizon, Jones said. TGR will likely consider other communities along the Front Range as well as Colorado’s mountain resort towns for potential expansion opportunities.