Chugging away
New owners roll up sleeves to spiff up iconic liquor store

There’s a new-old face behind the counter at 6th Street Liquor. Former resident and Fort Lewis College graduate Jared Thomson and wife, Amy, bought the venerable downtown “packie” liquor store last month.

“My whole family is from the area,” said Thomson, who grew up in Farmington but had grandparents in Durango. After graduating from FLC, he moved to Seattle, where he met Amy and lived for 16 years prior to moving back to Durango. “We decided to come back to Durango and ended up buying 6th Street Liquor,” he said.

Jared and Amy were bartenders in Seattle, so working in the alcohol industry is nothing new to them.

“We were both bartenders the majority of our adult lives,” Jared said. “We always wanted to be  independent business owners, so when we saw this opportunity, we jumped on it.”

Since buying the business from the former absentee owners who lived out of state, Jared has taken up front-of-the-house duties while Amy works behind the scenes on the bookkeeping. (She also has a day job in the medical field).

“She’s the brains, and I’m the brawn,” he said. 

And speaking of brawn, they’ve both been rolling up their sleeves organizing, cleaning and generally spiffing up the joint with the help of Jared’s parents, who live in Farmington.

“The wine shelves probably had not been cleaned in 20 years,” Jared quipped. “We’ve been doing a lot of improving, rearranging and brightening it up.”

For Jared, who local music buffs may remember as a member of the 2000s local hip hop group Dialogue, owning 6th Street is a sort of homecoming for him.

“My dad also went to FLC and lived a block away,” he said. “In the ’70s, he would call the owner, and he would set aside six 30-packs of beer in the back for him and his friends. My dad always had a heartfelt appreciation for that.”

While the days of leaving 30-packs out for the college kids on the honor system may be long gone, Jared said he does not plan to change much about the iconic downtown spot, a 1,000-square-footish repurposed house. “We plan on keeping it as it is and maybe bring in some new inventory,” he said, adding he welcomes suggestions. “We want to remain friendly to the people who don’t mind the grime.”

And by “grime,” of course he means the generations of built-up, cherished, if not somewhat foggy, memories (stemming at least all the way back to when College Drive was known as “6th Street.”)

“We’re glad to be back and part of the community,” he said. “I’ll be here all day, every day, chugging away.”

(We’re assuming not literally, of course.)