Community, Passion, and Precision: Inside Burlaep Print and Press

A ROQ Customer Spotlight — Chattanooga, Tennessee

When you walk into Burlaep Print and Press in Chattanooga, Tennessee, you aren't just entering a coffee shop or a screen printing facility — you are stepping into a vibrant community hub that defies easy categorization. Burlaep has masterfully combined the inviting warmth of a local café with the industrious energy of an eco-conscious apparel brand, a lively taproom, a flexible event center, and a fully operational water based screen printing shop — all under one roof.

Anchoring the experience out back is their live printing activation van, ready to take the craft on the road. This one-of-a-kind model is redefining what it means to be a modern print shop, and it is exactly the kind of bold, community-first thinking that makes Burlaep one of our favorite ROQ customers.

Part 1: The Hybrid Community Hub That's Changing the Game

Burlaep's story began in 2010 in Starkville, Mississippi, with a simple but powerful mission: support local communities and celebrate the outdoors. After relocating to Chattanooga, Tennessee, the brand launched its flagship storefront — a space that doubles as a coffee shop, taproom, and event venue, with a water based screen printing operation running in the back. The brand's outdoor-themed apparel line, rooted in sustainability and locally crafted design, ties the entire experience together.

This kind of hybrid, multi-use retail concept is more than just a novelty.

According to industry research, creating community spaces within retail environments is a proven strategy for driving foot traffic and delivering a more complete, emotionally resonant customer experience. Burlaep has taken that principle and run with it — literally.

Their live printing activation van brings the screen printing experience directly to events, festivals, and brand activations across the region. Mobile screen printing is an increasingly recognized form of experiential marketing, engaging audiences in real time and creating wearable memories they take home.

What makes Burlaep's model so compelling is the way each element reinforces the others. The coffee shop draws in the community. The taproom keeps them around. The event space brings them back. And the eco-conscious, water based screen printing shop gives the whole operation a creative heartbeat.

Burlaep also amplifies its community impact by providing discounted membership shirts for outdoor organizations like the Southeastern Climbers Coalition, with most proceeds funding conservation efforts across the Southeast.

It is a business model built not just for profit, but for purpose.

— Burlaep Print and Press

For screen printing shops looking to grow their footprint and deepen community ties, Burlaep's multi-dimensional approach offers a compelling blueprint. It proves that a screen printing shop can be far more than a production floor — it can be a gathering place, a creative engine, and a force for good in its community.

Part 2: Meet Jake Grace — A Screen Printer Who Lives and Breathes the ROQ

At the heart of Burlaep's printing operation is their shop print manager, Jake Grace. Jake's enthusiasm for his craft and his tools is the kind of thing that reminds you why this industry is so special. He operates a ROQ automatic screen printing press — specifically the ROQ YOU XL — and by his own account, he would never go back to anything else.

Jake's passion for the ROQ press recently found a creative outlet that perfectly captures the spirit of a true craftsman. While performing routine press maintenance, he was flipping through the ROQ YOU XL handbook when he came across the technical schematics — the detailed blueprints of the press itself. For most people, that might be a moment of mild curiosity.

For Jake, it was inspiration.

— Jake Grace, Shop Print Manager, Burlaep Print and Press

Jake took that schematic, blew it up large, and printed it on a shirt using their exact 376 Pantone green discharge screen printing ink — ROQ's signature color. The result is a wearable tribute to a piece of machinery that Jake genuinely loves operating every single day.

At ROQ, we believe that the relationship between a printer and their press is one of the most important partnerships in the industry. When an operator like Jake trusts his equipment so completely that he turns its blueprints into a work of art, it validates everything we put into engineering our presses. We are proud to build tools that screen printers are passionate about, and we are committed to continuing to make those tools even better.

Operators like Jake are exactly who we build for — skilled, dedicated craftspeople who demand precision, reliability, and performance from their ROQ screen printing equipment every single day.

Part 3: ROQ Tech Tip — Pallet Arm Calibration Made Simple

Even the most robust ROQ screen printing machine requires occasional maintenance to keep it performing at its best. Burlaep has owned their ROQ press for approximately four years, and during a recent visit, we identified a minor but important issue: one of the pallet arms had accidentally been stood on at some point, causing it to sit slightly lower than the rest of the carousel.

While this kind of issue is uncommon, but can happen — particularly if a pallet arm bears unexpected weight, or if a screen comes down with an object caught between the print head and the arm, forcing it down. The good news is that this is a straightforward calibration that the ROQ Tech team can walk any shop through, ensuring that your press is printing consistently and accurately on every single pallet.

Here is the step-by-step process we used at Burlaep to restore their press to perfect calibration:

Step 1 — Establish the Reference Point: Place a flat, oversized platen into a screen clamp. This platen will serve as your reference surface for identifying the zero point of the correctly leveled pallet arms.

Step 2 — Lower the Off-Contact: Lower the off-contact adjustment to bring the platen flush against all of the correctly leveled pallet arms. This confirms which arms are at the proper height and isolates the one that has dropped.

Step 3 — Loosen the Adjustment Nuts: Locate the nuts at the back of the affected pallet arm and loosen them carefully. This frees the arm to be adjusted without forcing it.

Step 4 — Raise and Calibrate: Carefully raise the lowered pallet arm until it matches the calibration level of the correctly positioned arms. Use the reference platen to verify that the surface is flush and consistent across all positions.

Step 5 — Tighten and Verify: Once the arm is at the correct height, tighten the nuts securely. After tightening, verify the level one final time to ensure nothing shifted during the process.

Maintaining level pallets is a foundational element of quality screen printing press maintenance. As Anatol Equipment notes in their technical resources, if pallets are not level, the press cannot hold registration, resulting in misaligned, poor-quality prints. A well-calibrated press is the difference between a production floor that hums along efficiently and one that struggles with consistency.

This calibration is a great example of the kind of proactive support the ROQ Tech team provides to our customers. Whether your press is brand new or has been running strong for six years like Burlaep's, we are here to ensure that your ROQ automatic screen printing press continues to deliver the precision and performance you depend on — print after print, pallet after pallet.

Burlaep Print and Press is more than a customer, they are a living example of what is possible when passion, community, and great equipment come together. From their innovative hybrid business model to Jake Grace's heartfelt tribute to his ROQ press, everything about Burlaep reflects the values that drive us at ROQ: craftsmanship, dedication, and an unrelenting commitment to quality. We are proud to be their press of choice, and we look forward to many more years of printing alongside them.

Want to learn more about how a ROQ automatic screen printing press can transform your shop? Visit roq.us or reach out to our team today.

Check out and learn more about Burlaep Print & Press:

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