DENVER — There’s nothing quite like chatting with a friend over a good cup of coffee. A new Denver coffee shop called Migas Coffee is serving up that feeling every day in the city’s Five Points neighborhood.

The Black and Latina-owned coffee shop, which opened in April, is grounded in the neighborhood’s roots.

“The name Migas comes from amigas, which means friends in Spanish,” said co-owner Marisol Jurado.

Jurado owns the coffee shop with her friend, Alex Merriex. She balances Migas with her career as a marriage and family therapist. Her career background shows through the business’s tagline, “Let us fill your cup.”

“Where is your cup? Is it full? And how can we fill it? Whether that means just like a cup of coffee or if that means checking in with you,” said Jurado.

For Jurado, coffee means more than just a kick of energy.

“When I got sober, I realized I didn’t really have a good way to connect with people,” she said. “I started inviting people out to coffee instead of going out to the club and going out and party. And people receive that really well.”

Migas is located on Walnut Street inside Green Spaces Market, a place near and dear to Merriex’s heart.

“My grandfather’s house was on 24^th and Welton,” he said. “So right in the heart of Five Points.”

Merriex, who works for Charles Schwab, uses the knowledge he gained in his finance career to help fuel the shop.

“I get teary-eyed thinking about how I came from living on the east side to being able to open up a business down here. And that’s just so important to me,” he said.

Jurado said they chose Five Points for a reason.

“It’s important to us that we’re Black and brown-owned, and we’re back in the Five Points community,” she said.

According to the Small Business Administration, there were 684,726 small businesses in Colorado in 2023, with racial minorities owning 8.3% percent of them. That’s part of the reason why Green Spaces Market owner Javon Taylor provides opportunities for minority business owners.

“Local creators and minorities can come in and feel safe,” said Taylor. “Feel like they have a supportive community.”

For example, the floral design company Black + Blossomed, which is also located inside Green Spaces Market, supplies flowers for Migas.

“We have a symbiosis going on,” said Black + Blossomed owner Breigh Jones-Coplin. “I get coffee, and then (Marisol’s) just like, ‘Can I get some flowers?’ And it just works out.”

Jurado and Merriex look forward to helping customers feel like part of their growing community.

“We’re just really focusing on that connection,” said Jurado.

Hall of Fame linebacker Randy Gradishar learned of his Pueblo ties on January 29, 1974 — the same day he was selected in the first round of the NFL Draft.

Gradishar had just capped off his senior season at the Ohio State University with a 42-21 Rose Bowl victory over the USC Trojans. Denver Broncos coach John Ralston called the consensus All-American linebacker to inform him that he was the Broncos’ choice for the 14th pick in the draft.

“After I hung up with Coach Ralston, I called home and talked to mom and dad,” Gradishar told the Chieftain. “At the end of the conversation… I find out that my father was born in Pueblo.”

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Gradishar’s father Jim grew up in the Eilers neighborhood near the corner of Mesa and Egan avenues. Jim, his parents and his siblings moved to northeast Ohio during the Great Depression. However, their cousins remained in Pueblo.

Like Pueblo, the northeast Ohio cities of Warren and Youngstown were steel manufacturing cities. While his siblings worked in steel, Jim started a grocery store in Champion Township north of Warren after returning from World War II. Randy was born in 1952 and began working at his father’s grocery store at age 11.

“I just know in my heart that it was all God-directed the way it was going because I didn’t even start playing football until ninth grade,” Gradishar said. “We ended up my senior year with like 25 guys on the football team… My high school football coach sent out films for me and then all of a sudden, I got recruited by a few schools.”

Gradishar tallied 320 total tackles — 155 solo and 165 assisted — at Ohio State between 1971 and 1973, according to a 2022 Ohio State football media guide. He was named to the consensus All-American team twice and finished sixth in the 1973 Heisman Trophy voting.

When Gradishar began playing for the Broncos, his parents — Jim and Ann Gradishar — often flew to Denver to watch their son at Mile High Stadium before driving down to Pueblo and catching up with Jim’s cousins. Randy got the chance to visit the Pueblo Gradishars during the offseason.

Around the time of the 1977 NFL season — the season the Broncos made their first Super Bowl appearance — Gradishar and a few Broncos teammates worked with former University of Southern Colorado Coach Mike Friedman to organize a five-day football camp in Pueblo.

It was at the camp in Pueblo that Gradishar encountered a surname just one letter off from his own — Gradisar. Gradishar didn’t think much of the similar spelling at first but eventually found out that the two families are distantly related.

The names Gradisar and Gradishar both come from the Slovenian name Gradišar with the “š” sounding like an “sh,” according to Ben Gradishar, a Pueblo resident and a second cousin once removed to the Hall of Fame linebacker.

“We’re all ‘Gradisars’ but we inadvertently got an ‘h’ added at Ellis Island in the 1880s… Now there is ‘Gradisars’ and ‘Gradishars,’” Ben Gradishar told the Chieftain.

All ten of Randy Gradishar’s NFL seasons were played with the Denver Broncos. He retired with 2,049 tackles, seven Pro Bowl appearances and the 1978 NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award. He also grabbed 20 career interceptions and recovered 14 fumbles.

Gradishar is part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024. He will be enshrined with fellow inductees Dwight Freeney, Devin Hester, Andre Johnson, Steve McMichael, Julius Peppers and Patrick Willis at a ceremony on Aug. 3.

Post-retirement, Gradishar has kept busy working in public relations with Phil Long Dealerships but said he makes visits to Pueblo “relatively often.”

“That was pretty special knowing that there is family here and having the opportunity to know them as cousins,” Gradishar said. “Having that connection, again, goes way back to 1974 knowing that I was coming to Denver, Colorado and that my father was born in Pueblo.”

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Pueblo Chieftain reporter James Bartolo can be reached at JBartolo@gannett.com. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com