Who Owns Steamworks and HomeSlice? Peak Food & Beverage Durango

Peak Food & Beverage is the Durango, Colorado restaurant group behind Steamworks Brewing Co., El Moro Spirits & Tavern, HomeSlice Pizza, and Bird's. Founded in 1996 as a brewpub, the company is now 40.5 percent employee-owned, runs six restaurants, and employs up to 400 people each summer.

TL;DR

Peak Food & Beverage is the Durango, Colorado restaurant group behind Steamworks Brewing Co., El Moro Spirits & Tavern, HomeSlice Pizza, and Bird's. Founded in 1996 as a single brewpub, it now runs six restaurants and is 40.5 percent employee-owned.

Key Takeaways

Peak Food & Beverage launched in 1996 and now operates six restaurants across Durango.
The company is 40.5 percent employee-owned, with 35 employee-owners and a goal of 50 percent.
Its four brands are Steamworks Brewing Co., El Moro Spirits & Tavern, HomeSlice Pizza, and Bird's.
It employs up to 400 full- and part-time staff during the busy summer months.
Peak holds about 10 percent of all Durango eating and drinking establishments.

What is Peak Food & Beverage?

Peak Food & Beverage is a locally owned restaurant group headquartered in Durango, Colorado. It began in 1996 as a brewing company and has since grown to six restaurants across southwest Colorado, according to the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

The parent company operates four distinct food and beverage brands, all based in the Durango area:

Steamworks Brewing Co., the group's flagship brewpub
El Moro Spirits & Tavern, an elevated dining spot in a historic former saloon
HomeSlice Pizza, with three locations across town
Bird's, a breakfast and lunch concept

Because these are separate concepts under one roof, a single visit to Durango can take you from a craft beer flight downtown to a wood-fired pizza on the north end of Main Avenue.

Who owns Steamworks Brewing in Durango?

Steamworks Brewing Co. is owned by Peak Food & Beverage, co-founded and led by CEO Kris Oyler. Oyler built the company from his original dream of opening a brewpub, according to his Colorado OEDIT profile. The company has operated Steamworks for more than 25 years in Durango.

What sets Peak apart locally is its ownership model. Rather than a single owner calling the shots, the company built an employee-ownership structure through its Peak Employee Holdings LLC. Managers with a year or more of tenure can opt in to the ownership program, which grants them a genuine share of the company's future profits.

The result is measurable. Kris Oyler's bio notes that Peak is now 40.5 percent employee-owned, with 35 employee-owners, and carries a goal of reaching 50 percent in the years ahead.

Local's Take: The employee-ownership angle is not a marketing gimmick. Oyler credits it for something vacationers feel but never see, the short tenure on his management team. With a top-tier crew that has stuck around for six to seven years at minimum, the service and consistency at these six restaurants hold up even during Durango's busiest tourist stretches.

What restaurants does Peak Food & Beverage run?

Peak Food & Beverage operates four brands with six physical locations across Durango.

Steamworks Brewing Co. is the flagship, a downtown brewpub that has been a Durango institution for more than two decades.

El Moro Spirits & Tavern occupies a former early-1900s saloon once known as the site of "Durango's Strangest Shootout," per the official El Moro site. The kitchen leans toward modern casual fine dining with seasonal ingredients and a deep spirits list.

HomeSlice Pizza arrived in the portfolio in October 2021, when Peak acquired all three locations from longtime owners Cory and Lynn Kitch, the Durango Herald reported. The three pizzerias sit at 441 E. College Drive, 2957 N. Main Ave., and 125 Mercado St. in Three Springs, blending New York and Chicago style into what HomeSlice calls its own "Colorado Style."

Bird's rounds out the group as a breakfast and lunch concept on Main Avenue.

The 2021 acquisition doubled Peak's footprint overnight, taking it from three restaurants to six. Oyler told the Herald the move filled a gap he did not already serve. Because pizza is so different from a brewpub or a tavern, adding HomeSlice grew the company without cannibalizing its other brands.

How big is Peak Food & Beverage in Durango?

The numbers tell the story of a genuine local anchor rather than a small operator. Oyler's OEDIT profile puts Peak at up to 400 full- and part-time staffers during the busy summer months, with roughly 10 percent of all Durango eating and drinking establishments under its umbrella.

Certified Employee Owned independently corroborates the company's structure, listing Peak as an employee-owned headquarters based in Durango, Colorado.

For a mountain town the size of Durango, that scale is meaningful. When you eat at a Peak restaurant, you are dining at one of the region's largest homegrown hospitality employers, not a national chain.

Where should I eat at a Peak Food & Beverage restaurant?

Choosing between the four brands comes down to what kind of meal you want.

For a beer flight and pub food after a day on the mountain, Steamworks Brewing Co. in downtown Durango is the anchor.
For cocktails and a more formal dinner, El Moro Spirits & Tavern offers creative small plates and a historic atmosphere.
For a family-friendly pizza night, any of the three HomeSlice Pizza locations covers you from downtown to Three Springs.

The group's brands are all in the Durango area, so they pair naturally with a drive up US 550 toward Purgatory or a stop at a local ranch market on the way.

What makes Peak Food & Beverage different from other restaurant groups?

The employee-ownership structure is the defining difference. Most restaurant groups are owned by a single founder or a private equity firm. Peak instead runs a profits-interest model where employees who meet a tenure and membership process become owners with real voting rights and a share of future profits.

Oyler has said the structure reduced turnover and improved his bottom line, because employees who own a piece of the business operate with more care than staff who are simply clocking in and out.

For a visitor, that translates into something concrete: lower staff turnover means the same faces greet you year after year, and the recipes and standards stay consistent from one trip to the next.

Is Peak Food & Beverage a good stop during a Purgatory or Durango trip?

Yes. If you are driving up to Purgatory Resort or exploring downtown, the Peak brands give you a reliable, locally owned lineup that works across budgets and group sizes.

Families looking for a quick, kid-friendly meal can default to one of the three HomeSlice pizza locations. Couples after a nicer evening can book El Moro. And anyone who wants a true Durango institution can pull up a chair at Steamworks and order a house-brewed pint.

Because the company is employee-owned and rooted in Durango since 1996, your dollars stay in the local economy rather than flowing to an out-of-state chain.