Profile: Velo Garage — MIKCexplore

When a bar meets a full-service repair shop: North KC’s Velo Garage is a one stop shop for beer and bike lovers.

If you haven’t been to Velo Garage and Tap house, it’s time to take the quick hop to North KC to check out this bar and full-service bike shop, which offers mobile repair and a DIY station for those who like to get their hands dirty. While they’re definitely into bikes and great beer, their main passion is having fun and creating a unique experience for everyone - with or without bikes. Make sure to show up hungry. Velo offers a great selection of pizzas made in house and boasts an incredibly well-curated draft beer line up, as well as some wine and spirits.

Under normal circumstances (i.e. not during a pandemic) they typically organize about 3 events per month, which could be cornhole tournaments with KC Crew, live music, outdoor beer garden movie nights, bikepacking trips, gravel rides, or anything else they think of. One activity that every Velo cyclist has blocked on the calendar is Thirsty Thursdays, a group bike ride around the city on Thursday evenings when the weather is nice. I’ve done this social ride on several occasions. In my experience, absolutely all levels of cyclists are embraced during these rides. So dig out that Huffy that’s been gathering dust in the back of the garage, and make your way down for a ride. You won’t only have a great time seeing KC from a new perspective, but you’ll probably also leave with a new friend or five.

I sat down with Kiley Sutter, owner and founder of Velo Garage and Tap House, to learn more about what makes his business feel like a home-away-from-home for its many regulars. While we talked, a consistent flow of patrons showed up on both two wheels and four for beers, pizza, and a chance to enjoy a warm(ish) winter evening in the beer garden.

How did you decide to blend beer and bikes into one experience?

Bringing the beer and bike shop concept to KC is something we’re super proud of. While we started it in KC, we’re by no means the first concept to do so. My wife and I love to travel around the country in our Westy, and one of our favorite things is to find local beers and check out bike shops as we travel. We’ve always loved finding bike and beer concepts in cities we’ve traveled to - from Portland, OR to Minneapolis, MN and others. We decided to stop waiting for one to come to KC and brought it to KC ourselves.

What do you love about the Velo community and how did you build it?

Some of it was a “build it and they will come” leap of faith, but it wouldn’t have happened without the fact that KC has an amazing bike community. Even though KC is not the top tier biking city we’d like it to be (yet), there are so many passionate bike folk here who have given us more support than we expected. We’re fans of getting people on bikes to come have fun and explore what KC and the Midwest have to offer for biking. Since fun is really at the core of what we do, we’re not shy to refer customers to other bike shops to get what they need if we don’t offer it. There are plenty of great bike shops in KC and we’re lucky to have them. Every transaction matters to small businesses like us, but we feel this will help us and other shops in the long run. The biggest turn off for most folks in biking is that it can seem very esoteric and elitist…and it can. We try to combat that impression. If you ever ride with us, you’ll know exactly how cool, fun, and non-judgmental the majority of bike folk are.

So...Is Velo only for cyclists?

Nope. We love bikes. We sell and repair them, and obviously they’re a core part of our brand, but we love everybody. We have so many people who regularly come to the Tap House to enjoy our great beer selection and fire pits or to play shuffleboard, darts, or ping pong with friends. Our new pizza has helped even more since folks can come in to have a great beer and dinner, which we’d never offered before.

What do you love about your location in North KC?

We absolutely love NKC, and the layout of our space is perfect for what we wanted to create. We have an outdoor beer garden, a great interior space, and a bike shop all in one building. We also love that Swift Street is wide, flat, and low traffic - especially after 5:00 pm and on weekends. It’s the perfect place to ride and explore. It also doesn’t hurt that we are located just a mile and a half from the River Market - all of this is bikeable.

What do you see for the future of Velo Garage as the world gets back to a “new normal” over time?

We see ourselves growing into another location while enhancing this current location, as well. We’re definitely a DIY business. We did the build out primarily by ourselves. Anything that’s happened since we opened in 2017 - like the beer garden - has been done in a similar fashion. It’s not the fastest approach by any means, but living in a 3-season biking town and doing things ourselves has helped us prepare for the non-peak riding seasons (pandemic excluded) as we continue to grow. We definitely feel that there are a couple other locations that a Velo Garage makes sense. However, right now, we’re just doing what we can to make sure customers and staff are safe and we outlast the pandemic restrictions.

You sell both new and consignment bikes - What’s the best part of seeing someone ride away on a new (to them) bike?

If they have a big smile on their face and remember the feeling they had when they rode a bike as a kid, we are absolutely stoked for them! I think an even better feeling is seeing the customer ride back up to the shop to ask questions or grab a beer and talk about how much they’re enjoying their bike. That’s priceless.

When you’re not manning the bar at Velo, where’s your favorite place to ride your bike?

If I’m off and away from the bar, I’m usually at home with my wife and 3-year-old daughter, so my days of getting to ride until sunset are behind me for a little while. I may not be able to get those long rides in on the weekend as much as I used to, but taking my daughter around town by bike is just as good as those long days in the saddle. If I do get a chance to do a weekend or a long ride, the Katy Trail is always a pleasure for me…or a quick trip to Bentonville, Arkansas to hit some of their amazing single track and explore that little nook of the world.