For Rob Templin and Michele Garrett, the road here has been a ride.
Gratitude is the soon to be open zero-proof bar at the corner of 28th Street and Colorado Avenue, next to the Story Coffee Co. in the Sluice Building.
“We try not to call it a ‘sober bar’ because ‘sober’ is on a spectrum,” Garrett explained. “What is sober to one person may not be sober to someone else, and so our main thing is zero-proof, so it has no alcohol.”
Garrett, 36, grew up in Monument and Templin, 43, grew up in Colorado Springs. Both have worked in the restaurant business for most of their lives.
Templin’s parents both had master’s degrees and wanted him to be an academic, an expectation that weighed heavily on him growing up. He attended college after high school, but struggled to find his niche and left to pursue other interests. The pressure to live up to the expectations of others played a significant role in driving him to drink.
“I could never be what my dad wanted me to be, mainly because I didn’t want to be anything that my dad wanted me to do.” he explained. “I built my ‘who I should be’ out of this image and, of course, I could never match that image.”
For Templin, drinking became self-destructive. An appointment with a doctor to discuss bloodwork opened his eyes.
“I had gotten a liver function test and they said that I was on my way to cirrhosis and I had fatty liver … and I was actually killing myself and it scared the s— out of me.”
Eight years ago on Sept. 11, Templin decided to quit. Over the next few years, he went back to school, obtained his associates in psychology, built up his confidence and learned how capable he was.
He found the personal growth more addicting than the alcohol. Part of his journey was realizing that no one person’s path is the same.
“Everybody is so incredibly different and what one person’s matrix may be is not one that I can necessarily follow,” he said.
During these years, Templin and Garrett’s paths crossed while both were working at an Ohana Kava Bar in Colorado Springs. There, they found a sober community that helped them along.
Garrett, at the time, had recently moved back to the Springs after running a brewery in Denver. A craft beer enthusiast, she enjoyed the taste, learning about the different types and being around others who felt the same.
During those years, she always accepted she was an alcoholic but didn’t think anything of it because everyone around her was, as well. She would drink as soon as she got home from work.
As far as what kept her drinking, she pointed to the community she felt at her workplace.
“Definitely the socializing of it, having a place to go when you’re by yourself. It’s easy to go to a bar.”
In January 2020, she realized she had a problem and so she left her job. At her mother’s invitation, she moved back to Colorado Springs. Despite the change, her struggles continued.
The night she went to the hospital, she insisted she wasn’t drinking at all.
“That’s funny, because your blood level is over the limit and you are going through withdrawals,” the doctor said.
“My mom cried because that was the first time she realized how bad my drinking was,” Garrett recalled. “I cried because I was embarrassed, upset and frustrated at myself. She took me back to the house and I sat on the living room floor for three days and detoxed.”
After the fevers and hallucinations from the delirium tremens subsided, the next chapter in Garrett’s story began.
I was just very thankful for life. – Rob Templin
She started attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, which, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, were all online. She kept her camera off because she felt too ashamed. It was a blessing in disguise because she knew she never would have attended in person.
When she started working at Ohana, she met a group of like-minded sober individuals. She found a new community of people with whom she could be open and honest. Through support of friends and family, she began to learn how to sit with her emotions and be comfortable with the uncomfortable.
For Templin and Garrett, the bar’s name was an expression of their outlooks on life.
“I was just very thankful for life and the opportunity to be given beyond what I thought I could ever have,” said Templin.
He chose “Gratitude” to be a daily reminder for him and a way to encourage others to do the same.
For Garrett, it was also a connection to positive aspects of her past life. “Gratitude” was the name of the annual customer appreciation day at the Denver brewery, which included discounted drinks, giveaways and flash tattoos. It was a celebration of community.
Gratitude will serve non-alcoholic versions of traditional alcoholic drinks, preferring the term “temperance beverages” over “mocktails.”
In place of alcohol, they’ll use ingredients including cayenne, apple cider vinegar, coriander and other spices and herbs. Some drinks will play on old classics like a “Sangria” featuring fresh-pressed ginger along with pomegranate, tart cherry, pineapple and orange juice.
Gratitude will also serve Kava, a drink sourced from the root of a native plant grown in the South Pacific, used traditionally for its sedative and anesthetic properties.
They won’t serve food of their own but plan to invite food trucks and local pastry vendors. In addition, they plan to host live music events, movie nights, yoga and jewelry-making classes and are open to fielding other ideas from the community.
For Templin and Garrett, Gratitude was about something greater than themselves; it was about bringing people together in a safe and welcoming place. A key ingredient to their own recoveries was the community that supported them and that was part of their inspiration for starting the business.
“When you have a village, you have so many people to look at or model after. I think our lack of communities in our neighborhoods today really affects that aspect of things,” said Templin.
“Support for me was the biggest part because I could see that other people were doing it and I could see other people could do it. I could also know that this isn’t going to be a journey that is going to be easy … but it’s the people who stand by you when you fail who will allow you to keep going.”
When Garrett quit her job to get sober, she left all she knew. “The industry has always been my life and when I got sober, I thought I kind of lost that because I didn’t know how I was going to incorporate living sober and the industry.”
Now, as she prepares to start this new venture, it’s as if all her life has led up to this moment.
“I want to do well for the community,” she added, “and give back as much we’ve been given.”
Author’s note: Kava has pharmacologic properties that may interact with some commonly prescribed pain, psychotropic and seizure medications. Anyone on such medications should check with their prescribing physicians about potential drug interactions before consuming.
IF YOU GO
Gratitude, 2752 W. Colorado Ave., opens Friday, June 21, and will be open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays and 11 a.m.-midnight Fridays and Saturdays. Information: 719-310-7591 or search for gratitudecos on Facebook.