Drive-thru BBQ brewery to fill defunct Burger King in Lafayette

A new eatery aimed at busy east Boulder County commuters will make its way into Lafayette this January — a barbecue and brewery joint that will serve up six-packs of its own beer and dinner mostly through the convenience of a drive-thru window — under father-son team Tim and Shem Trapp from Trapp Associates Ltd.

Uturn BBQ, which will fill the now-defunct 3,800-square-foot Burger King building at 599 Crossing Drive before the chain relocated to Erie this summer, follows in the vein of Lafayette’s recent move to attract unique and popular local restaurants, including William Oliver’s Publick House and Ras Kassa’s Ethiopian Restaurant.

Owners Tim Trapp, left, and his son, Shem Trapp, stand inside the new Uturn BBQ brewery and restaurant on Thursday in Lafayette. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

“When we were presented with the old Burger King location, we thought, ‘What should we do?'” Tim Trapp said Friday. “Having done a number of barbecue joints, coupled with the drive-thru, we decided it would be a great combination.”

Uturn BBQ will offer “premium” barbecue and signature beers available through indoor-outdoor seating and a drive-thru, according to the duo. The Trapps will also implement a seven-barrel brewing system and “the best there is” in-house meat smoker, according to Tim Trapp.

“What could be better than pulling your car up to get barbecue and have a six-pack included?” he asked.

Originally, Trapp wanted to sell six-packs of easy-drinking beers such as Pabst Blue Ribbon through the window. However, state liquor laws don’t allow restaurants to sell beer to go unless they brew it themselves, he said.

The family hired Alex Violette, an award-winning former head brewer at Upslope, to design the beers — an American-style stout and a German-style kolsch. For the second beer, Violette obtained a special kolsch yeast strain from Cologne, Germany.

On the food side, the Trapps have hired Bill Heckler, the former head chef at CraftWorks to take regional barbecue traditions from around the country and put his own spin on them.

While this is the first restaurant the pair have opened themselves, Trapp Associates has designed more than 350 restaurants-breweries throughout the United States, including local projects Fresh Thymes and the Walnut Brewery, and for national chains including Rock Bottom Restaurants, Gordon Biersch and Jim ‘N Nicks BBQ.

(Source: Daily Camera, http://www.dailycamera.com/lafayette-news/ci_30627033/drive-thru-bbq-brewery-newest-eatery-slated-lafayette)