When two-time Aggie grad Jason Hamilton took over the operations of a bike shop near Texas A&M University, he had no idea he’d end up running a coffee shop too. “I was managing the place in September of ‘19, watching all these students walk past. All day. Lots of them,” he says. He heard the college-age employees commiserate that they didn’t have enough places to study on campus, and there wasn’t a convenient coffee shop nearby, either. “I was, like, why can’t we have a coffee shop here?” he wondered. The location near campus, with several apartment complexes and plenty of free parking, was ideal. So, in January 2020, he put pedal to the metal and IN ORDER it happen, transitioning the business from BCS Bicycles to Rooster’s Bike & Coffee Shop.
And then COVID happened. The coffee shop idea “had to be put on a big pause,” Hamilton says. “For two-and-a-half months, I was a one-person bicycle shop,” he says. “All of my students went home.”
Fortunately, the state of Texas considered the bike shop an essential business, so it was allowed to remain open. Classes continued even though the campus was closed, and at that time, no one knew when it would open again and at what capacity. Students weren’t riding their bikes on campus, like usual, and didn’t need repairs, either. Hamilton noted that fewer students were walking by the shop. They’re not going to class, Hamilton remembers thinking. They’re going to need a place to study. “That’s exactly what happened,” he says. He started offering coffee on Oct. 1, 2020, and after that, “we were
full every day.”
Hamilton is the director of Kingdom Ranch, a Christian summer camp he founded in 2006 for special needs children, in Snook. The creation of mountain bike trails on its 60 acres is what led him to the bike shop initially. During college, he was a youth counselor for at-risk youth, worked at various summer camps, and was a graduate and student assistant with weight training for the university’s Athletics department. “My ties to A&M are deep and long,” he says, so owning a coffee shop that would cater to the Aggie population was a natural fit. But he wanted to do it differently.
“I wanted to create a non-coffee shop,” Hamilton says. He transformed the interior of the building, which was once a Bonanza restaurant, into a hip hangout. “A lot of this stuff is just mismatched,” he says. “There’s no interior decorator. It’s just random.” Suspended above the entrance, for instance, is a retired yellow Ofo rental bike. Buzz and Woody characters from the Toy Story franchise dangle from the ceiling. “I've got some old Apple IIs — some Macintosh computers, old lunchboxes, some A&M stuff,” he says, pointing out various displays around the room. Customers waiting for their drinks may catch a glimpse of Homer Simpson or President H.W. Bush riding bicycles on a
revolving TV display or be entertained by the enclosed counter layered with retro memorabilia. Inside the case are Hamilton’s childhood Star Wars figures, a Sony Walkman, old comic book pages, CDs, cassettes, Atari games, and a couple of old bike tools, still in their packages. On the opposite wall hangs a large poster of photocopied record album jackets from Hamilton’s collection, including Fleetwood Mac, Guns and Roses, Pink Floyd, and Van Halen. “Those are my vinyls,” he says. “The record rings are real.”
“When I got here, it was no music, no stereo system, just a bike shop with maybe some music in the tool area for the mechanics. It was quiet, and I'm like, we’ve got to change all this,” Hamilton says. His playlist includes 1,324 songs — 90 hours of music that’s mostly vintage rock and a range of genres, from old Motown and Elvis to The Beatles and the British Invasion to Patsy Cline and Hank Williams. “Usually it’s cranked,” Hamilton says. He purposely did not include music from the past 10 years that he figured students would have already downloaded on their own devices. He says students often wear earbuds while working on their laptops. “If you want to go and be quiet, go to the library, go to another coffee shop,” he says. “If you want to come here and socialize, you come to Rooster’s.”
The coffee has proven to be a Godsend. The shop was feeling the effects of the pandemic before COVID-19 hit the United States, as many bicycles and parts are made in China, and the factories shut down months earlier there than here. “The factories weren’t shipping, and then America — well, the world, but America — also got stuck at home,” he explains. So, what did people do? “They went and got outside and bought bicycles,” he says. At the beginning of the shutdown, Rooster’s sold a lot of bikes but then couldn’t get more. Even now, it’s difficult to get inventory to stock the store. “There’s no bikes,” Hamilton says with a shrug. He anticipates that supply won’t meet demand until 2023.
Until such time, the shop will focus on buying and selling used bikes, bike repairs, and capitalizing on the coffee.
Rooster’s coffee drinks are made from an exclusive house-blend roast made by Polite Coffee, called Moose Snort, using an Italian Astoria espresso machine, and flavored with Monin gourmet syrups. “Nothing is push button,” Hamilton says. “Everything’s done by hand.” There are tea options on the menu as well, and hungry customers can also order bagels. Rooster’s employees do not accept tips, and there’s no time limit for internet access. The seating area is expanding, and Hamilton invested in some plush, leather furniture to break up the rows of tables and provide more comfortable, lounge-style seating. His wife and three sons have trained as baristas and at various times, they each have all helped with the business.
“We wanted to create an environment that people would want to come and hang out in,” Hamilton says. “And that's exactly what we've done.” IN
