Jackalope Coffee shop opens in downtown

The Jackalope Coffee Haus and Smoothie Bar debuted in downtown Tucumcari in late May - the first of at least three such shops that will open in the coming weeks after the city saw no operating coffee shops for years.

Owner Annie McCauley held a soft opening on May 21 for Jackalope at 211 S. Second St. in the Masonic Lodge building, six doors from her Blanco Creek Boutiques she opened in late 2020. Jackalope's hours are from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Jackalope offers coffee drinks (including cold brews and iced coffee), non-coffee drinks, syrup drinks and frappes. The smoothies include frozen lemonade, four-berry, strawberry, peach pear apricot, strawberry banana and Pineapple Paradise.

McCauley also will offer espresso drinks, but she is awaiting a part from Italy to arrive before she can use the machine that makes them.

"Every week, they tell me next week" on the part, she said. "That's been going on for three weeks."

Jackalope gets its coffee beans from Palace Coffee Co. in Amarillo.

She said the soft opening and the next day of business went well.

"We were really slammed most of the day," McCauley said of the May 21 opening. "Then we made the same amount of drinks on Monday, but it was more spread out through the day. It wasn't as hectic, but it's been really good."

McCauley said the idea of opening a coffee shop had been percolating for years.

"My husband and I were wanting to open a coffee shop since 2015," she said. "Things hadn't lined up correctly. When we moved Blanco Creek into the bigger space, we were going to put it in there, but we couldn't make the logistics of it work. Plus Blanco Creek was really packed full; there wasn't room to put them both at the same time."

They bought a trailer with a plan to open a mobile coffee shop, but its floor required costly repairs. Then she found out about the availability of the former Farm Bureau Insurance space in March.

"The stars finally aligned to get this open," she said.

Jackalope won't be the only coffee shop in town for long. Michael Carlson said in a telephone interview he plans to open his Carlson Coffee Co. in the old Lena's Cafe building near Tucumcari Railroad Plaza the week of June 6.

Tucumcari city commissioner Christopher Arias and his wife plan to open a mobile coffee cafe in a converted Volkswagen minibus. He said last week he hopes to open that business by fall.

Circa Espresso Bar once operated in a section of the Historic Route 66 Motel, but it closed about seven years ago.

McCauley said she was aware of other coffee businesses coming to Tucumcari and was unbothered by that prospect.

"I think there's plenty of people and plenty of coffee to go around for everybody," she said. "I don't think there's a problem in having more than one business. I think it's good for Tucumcari to have other options."