By Margaret Hedderman
One of the warmest regions in Colorado is now home to a cool new startup. After moving to Grand Junction, Air Force veteran and aircraft maintenance expert Chris Bonds identified an unexpected niche: clear, premium-quality cocktail ice. What began as a personal interest in crafting high-end drinks at home has now evolved into Grand Valley Ice, the region’s first local supplier of clear ice cubes.
Bonds’ entrepreneurial journey reflects the growing wave of small business startups in Rural Colorado, fueled by local support services designed to spur innovation and economic growth. In addition to working with the Grand Junction Economic Partnership and the Business Incubator Center, Bonds is now a recipient of Colorado’s Rural Jump-Start program.
After retiring from the Air Force, Bonds returned home to Mississippi where he pursued a career in manufacturing and eventually entrepreneurship. Upon relocating to Grand Junction in 2017, Bonds was surprised to find that neither restaurants nor liquor stores served craft ice in the area.
“It’s a really weird thing. There’s no access to it,” Bonds said. On the contrary, “I noticed that a lot of the larger cities had a place where you could go to buy it.”
Unlike standard ice cubes, which are cloudy and melt quickly, the clear cubes produced by Grand Valley Ice are designed for high-end cocktails, enhancing both the aesthetic and the drinking experience. Yet, bringing this idea to life in a small market like Grand Junction wasn’t without its challenges.
Early Challenges & Local Support
From securing a manufacturing space to figuring out the technical details of large-scale ice production, Bonds faced a number of obstacles in the early stages of launching his business. While he’d been making craft ice at home for years, the process of making it at scale is more complicated than it appears. It requires a specialized ice machine that uses directional freezing to ensure the ice is clear and crack-free. Even with the right equipment, producing ice on a commercial scale involves careful temperature control and handling.
“Ice just cracks,” Bonds said. “It’ll do the same thing on a 300 lb scale if you don’t handle it right.”
Another major hurdle was finding an affordable space for his operations. “Real estate is expensive,” he said. “I probably wouldn’t be doing this” without help from the Grand Junction Business Incubator Center, a local nonprofit that offers space and consulting services to startups.
Through the incubator’s Intensive Program, Bonds was able to secure 600 square feet of manufacturing space—a critical lifeline in an area where most industrial spaces are too large and expensive for a fledgling business. The incubator’s affordable rent allowed him to keep overhead costs low, freeing up capital for equipment and other essential expenses.
In addition to the space and mentor