Welcome
Atmosphere Bristlecone Shooting, Training & Retail Center aims to provide exemplary service in a friendly setting. by Jodi Stemler
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hen you walk through the front doors of the Bristlecone Shooting, Training & Retail Center in the western suburbs of Denver, you find a bright, open retail area with quality inventory and friendly, knowledgeable staff. The 14 indoor shooting lanes are always busy, and the many different classes fill quickly.
It’s a welcoming atmosphere, which was the key to what owners Bryan and Jacquelyn Clark were hoping to create. “We didn’t grow up around guns,” Jacquelyn says. “We got into shooting when we lived in Atlanta and had a personal crisis. We thought we heard someone in our house and found ourselves hiding behind the bed with a golf club. The next day Bryan began researching firearms and dragged me to the range.” They both fell in love with shooting, but the first range they went to wasn’t exactly nice. After looking around, they found a more welcoming environment and began to progress as shooters. Both Clarks have extensive business and legal experience, so when they moved to Colorado and couldn’t find a range with a similar feel, they decided to start one themselves. “It was a dinner table conversation,” she remembers. “We wanted to create something different that was unique to the market.” They made it their mission to provide an extraordinary recreational experience for shooting sports enthusiasts of all levels. Working with range development consultant Ed Santos, and attending an NRA Range Development conference, they began to piece together their vision. The NSSF Five-Star range is 20,000 square feet, and at first the Clarks worried it would be too much space. But they soon found that rather than feeling empty, the retail space and range feel open and less cramped. “The most important thing to us was to have an environment that was welcoming to everyone, something that was inclusive and inviting,” says Jacquelyn. “We wanted a family focus for people to walk in and feel it was comfortable and not intimidating—particularly for new shooters.” The exterior of the store resembles a mountain timber and stone-framed lodge, providing an immediate visual connection to the Colorado outdoor aesthetic. Everything from the layout of the store to where the range is located to the colors on the walls were considered. In addition, staffing was critical as
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4/12/22 9:39 AM
