The Best Bike Café in Salt Lake City: How Heather and Pat Casey Built Utah's Only Bike Shop + Coffee Haven at CycleCafe

There's a building on the corner of 1700 South and 300 East in Salt Lake City's Liberty Wells neighborhood that still carries faint traces of painted words on its exterior. Grocery and meats. Whatever life that corner held a century ago, something new and entirely specific to this moment in Utah's cycling culture now lives inside. Bikes hang on the walls. An espresso machine hisses from behind the counter. Dogs wander through. And on any given morning, you'll find road cyclists unclipping their shoes at the door, neighbors grabbing a cortado before work, and the occasional triathlete deep in conversation about saddle height. This is Peak State CycleCafe — the bike café Salt Lake City didn't know it needed and now absolutely cannot do without.

"The welcoming atmosphere, combined with high-quality coffee and snacks, creates a unique and enjoyable experience for bike enthusiasts," wrote one recent customer. That sentence sounds simple enough, but it undersells what Heather and Pat Casey have actually built here: a genuine third place for Utah's cycling community, one that didn't exist before and that no one else was building.

From a Bike Shop in Alabama to Utah's Most Unexpected Community Hub

Heather Casey grew up in Auburn, Alabama — an only child with an athlete's rhythm built into her early. Swimming came first, then cycling. By fourteen, she was spending long hours after swim practice at a local bike shop, learning the language of parts and repairs, and quietly noticing she was almost always the only girl there. That observation never left her.

Pat Casey's story runs parallel in its own way. He grew up in St. Louis and took his first job in a bike shop at fifteen. Even while studying biology at Truman State University, bikes stayed constant. As Pat has put it: "Everywhere I moved, I ended up working in a bike shop. I never aged out of it. I just grew in experience."

They met in Alabama in 2012, at a bike shop where conversation came easy and rides went long. By 2018, they were in Salt Lake City and officially launched Peak State Fit on a $10,000 startup loan from Pat's mother, Carole. No investors, no debt. Just two people who cared deeply about how cycling could change someone's relationship with their body — and a growing suspicion that the experience of getting a bike fit could be something more human than a transaction.

Then COVID arrived. And something unexpected happened: people turned to their bikes. Pat's days stretched longer as riders came in with sore bodies and new mileage, looking not for performance gains but for relief. During that period, Pat started making coffee for clients. It wasn't strategic — it was instinctive. "Sitting down with a cup of espresso changes the conversation," he's said. "People relax. They start telling you what's really going on." That casual cup became the seed of everything that followed.

Heather joined Goldman Sachs's 10,000 Small Businesses program and began shaping the café idea with intention. "We realized we were not just fitting bikes," she said. "We were building a place where people wanted to stay." In 2024, they made what Heather calls their "boldest move yet" — opening the CycleCafe, Salt Lake City's first bike-centric coffee shop, inside the historic general store building they'd watched for years and finally convinced the owner to lease.

The result is now recognized as Triathlete Magazine's Best Bike Fitter in the USA, a Salt Lake Chamber featured business, and — more importantly — a space people actually want to come back to.

The CycleCafe Experience: Specialty Coffee, Serious Bikes, and Good Vibes on 1700 South

Walk into Peak State CycleCafe and the first thing you notice is that it doesn't feel like either a typical bike shop or a typical coffee bar. It's both, and neither. Carbon fiber frames hang alongside pour-over stations. There's a patio that Heather and her team finished just before a drunk driver crashed into the building in March 2025 — a setback the community rallied around, and that the CycleCafe came back from without missing a beat.

The coffee program is anchored by Idle Hands Roasting Company, a partnership Heather credits as being "built on mutual respect, shared values, and a commitment to excellence." Idle Hands sources single-origin beans with serious intentionality — a medium blend drawing from Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Brazil, processed with a washed Colombian and Natural Ethiopia approach and landing with notes of brown sugar, milk chocolate, cherry, and sweet citrus. For those who lean light, there's a juicy, vibrant pour featuring Ethiopian and Colombian beans processed naturally that drinks floral and full of red berries.

In other words: this isn't gas station coffee for cyclists. This is third-wave coffee for people who apply the same precision to their espresso as they do their cadence.

The food menu keeps things clean and rider-focused. House-made overnight oats with honey, cinnamon, and gluten-free granola show up alongside pastries and snacks designed for people who actually move their bodies. It's not precious — it's practical, well-made, and exactly what you want before or after a long effort on the Jordan River Parkway or up Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Customers consistently rave about baristas Lauren and Tori, who have, as Heather put it, "helped shape the culture and personality of CycleCafe with heart, talent, and an incredible commitment to hospitality." One reviewer summed it up the way regulars always do: it feels "like family."

The seating is designed with intention — quick espresso at the bar if you're mid-ride, or a long post-ride debrief with friends at a proper table. The building itself adds something ineffable. A hundred years of Salt Lake City life pressed into the walls, and a new layer being written right now by cyclists, neighbors, teachers, and anyone who just appreciates a well-crafted cup.

The Liberty Wells Cycling Community Hub That SLC Has Been Waiting For

Peak State CycleCafe doesn't just sit in Liberty Wells — it's become one of the neighborhood's anchoring presences. The location at 1700 South sits at a natural hub point for cyclists coming off the Jordan River Parkway trail corridor, riders looping through the city's south side, and bike commuters navigating toward and away from downtown. The cycling community in Salt Lake City is active and growing, and for a long time it lacked a dedicated gathering space that could hold the whole culture: the serious endurance athlete, the weekend gravel rider, the commuter, and the person who's just curious about getting their first proper bike fit.

Weekly group rides leave from the shop regularly. Saturday coffee meetups have become a social tradition. Educational clinics cover everything from coffee brewing to the science of bike fitting. The Wheelie Spoked group ride calls the CycleCafe home base. It's the kind of programming that makes a business feel less like a retail space and more like an institution.

The shop's technical credentials are worth noting too, because they give the community piece real weight. No shop worldwide has performed more Retül bike fits than Peak State Fit. Pat Casey was voted Best Bike Fitter in the USA by Triathlete Magazine. The custom builds feature ENVE, Ventum, Factor, Moots, and Mosaic Cycles. This isn't a cute concept café attached to a mediocre wrench shop — it's one of the most serious cycling operations in the country, and the café is its heartbeat.

"Whether you're gearing up for your next adventure, enjoying a coffee after a ride, or simply chatting with fellow cycling enthusiasts, we're here to be your hub for all things cycling," Heather told the Salt Lake Chamber. That sentence, said simply, contains everything that makes this place remarkable: it was built for all of it, not just part of it.

Planning Your Visit to Peak State CycleCafe

Address: 301 E 1700 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84115 (Liberty Wells neighborhood, corner of 300 East and 1700 South)

Hours: Open 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM daily (hours subject to change; check @cyclecafeslc or @peakstatefit on Instagram for current updates)

Phone: 801-703-3019

Website: peakstatefit.com

What to order first: Start with an espresso drink featuring the Idle Hands medium blend — brown sugar and milk chocolate notes make it especially satisfying post-ride. The overnight oats are the right call if you're fueling up before hitting the Bonneville Shoreline Trail or any of the Wasatch Front cycling routes.

Best time to visit: Saturday mornings are the heartbeat of the community here — group rides form up, regulars gather, and the energy of Utah's cycling culture fills the room. Come ready to talk bikes and stay longer than you planned.

Insider tip: If you've been dealing with knee pain, saddle discomfort, or just want to know if your bike actually fits you — book a Retül fitting while you're there. It's world-class, and it changes rides.

Instagram: @cyclecafeslc and @peakstatefit

Why CycleCafe Matters to Utah's Food and Cycling Scene

There's a version of this story that gets told as a business success narrative — the startup loan, the Goldman Sachs program, the award, the magazine coverage. That version is true but incomplete. What Heather and Pat Casey actually built is rarer: a space where the door is genuinely open to everyone, where the little girl who felt out of place in a bike shop would feel welcome, where a retired teacher from the neighborhood and an elite triathlete can share the same counter and the same good cup of coffee.

The bike café Salt Lake City has now — Utah's only one, as they'll tell you plainly — is proof that the most powerful thing a business can build isn't a product. It's a place people want to be. Come for the specialty coffee. Stay because of how it feels when you're there.

Peak State CycleCafe is located at 301 E 1700 S in Salt Lake City's Liberty Wells neighborhood. Follow @cyclecafeslc on Instagram for ride schedules, events, and daily specials.