Gun Range Adds Vegan Café, Aims to Shoot Stereotypes

Local gun range fuses ammo and avocado toast, drawing hipsters and hunters to an unlikely common ground.

CEDAR PINES, Colo. — In a move as bizarre as it is bold, a local shooting range has opened an attached vegan café and juice bar in an attempt to attract a more "balanced" customer base. The unusual pairing is the brainchild of range owner Dale Walker, who calls it "the ultimate bipartisan business model," bringing kale smoothies and clay pigeons under one roof.

Walker, a jovial man in a camouflage baseball cap and a stained apron reading "Kiss the Chef (and Don't Shoot)", says he wanted to challenge assumptions. "We're here to shoot stereotypes, not just targets," he explained, gesturing from the firing line to the café counter. "Why can't a gun enthusiast enjoy a nice quinoa salad? And who's to say a vegan won't get a kick out of hitting a bullseye or two?"

Walker's plan is simple: foster understanding by forcing folks who might normally avoid each other to share a space—and maybe a snack.

On opening day of "Shots & Sprouts" (the cheekily named hybrid establishment), the scene was equal parts firing range and farmers' market. The scent of gunpowder mingled oddly with the aroma of fresh-brewed fair-trade coffee. At one table, a tattooed café patron carefully framed a photo of her tofu wrap for Instagram. Just a few yards away, a series of loud pops from the shooting lanes punctuated the café's indie folk playlist—each gunshot causing a momentary tremor in her oat-milk latte.

"I ain't never seen so much salad at a gun range," chuckled Bob "Buck" Thompson, a regular marksman who looked equal parts bemused and hungry as he eyed a tray of quinoa wraps. Dressed head-to-toe in hunting camo, Thompson admitted he approached the café counter with trepidation.

"I thought kombucha was some kinda ammo," he joked, swirling a cup of kombucha that the barista convinced him to try. To his surprise, he didn't hate it. "Tastes like beer that went to college," he declared, nodding appreciatively before taking another swig.

Likewise, the vegan crowd showed initial apprehension. "Honestly, I was terrified to come in here," said Zoe Sanders, a visiting yoga instructor gingerly sipping a wheatgrass shot while eyeing a rack of rifles. Sanders, who swears the deep reverberations from the adjacent shooting lanes are "great for deep fascia release," eventually relaxed. Midway through her avocado toast (served bullet-shaped), she admitted the ongoing crack of gunfire was oddly invigorating. "It's like a really intense sound bath," she laughed.

For many patrons, the biggest surprise wasn't the sound of live ammunition next to the hum of a juicer, but how quickly the two groups found common ground. A group of hunters and vegans bonded over their mutual love of gear. One corner of the café saw an impromptu show-and-tell: a hunter passed around his custom earmuffs while a vegan chef showed off his high-tech blender. They nodded respectfully at each other's equipment, each secretly impressed.

Even the menu is a testament to cross-culture creativity. The café offers tongue-in-cheek specials like the ARugula-15 Salad and Glock-amole Dip, alongside bullet-shaped brownies that are flying off the shelf. "We sold out of the brownies in an hour," said café manager Maya Lee, who wears a holster for her thermometer. "The shooters love them because, well, guns. And the vegans love that they're gluten-free carob. It's a win-win, I guess?"

Not everyone was easily convinced. Some regulars squinted at the tofu sliders as if they were grenades, and one vegan customer nearly fainted after mistaking a taxidermy deer head in the lobby for the real thing. But by day's end, skepticism gave way to curiosity. A camo-clad retiree found himself ordering a second hemp protein smoothie ("It keeps ya regular," he was overheard telling a friend), while a young vegan couple ventured to take turns firing a vintage revolver under an instructor's guidance, giggling as they hit nowhere near the target.

"Never thought I'd see the day," mused Thompson as he watched Zoe Sanders give a wide-eyed novice a high-five after her first bullseye. Over at the next lane, a pair of bearded vegans were debating the merits of organic vs. synthetic gun oil with an avid hunter, all three of them laughing.

The range's owner, Walker, beamed at the unlikely camaraderie unfolding. "This is exactly what I was aiming for," he said, unaware he'd just made a pun. "People from opposite ends finding out they're not so different once you get 'em talking. Or chewing."

As the sun set over Cedar Pines, a handful of patrons lingered at Shots & Sprouts. Through the big window, you could see one of the baristas teaching a sharpshooter how to snap a perfect photo of the last bullet brownie, while in the background a once-skeptical patron took a tentative slurp of carrot-ginger soup. In a world often divided, one small-town experiment in coffee and calibers is proving that common ground—be it literal ground coffee or spent shell casings—can be found in the most unlikely of places.