Award-winning bartender/consultant Alex Jump is also an industry advocate championing health and wellness in the beverage industry. She is the founder of the consulting agency Dim Lights Hospitality and cofounder of Focus on Health, a for profit organization dedicated to enriching the lives of hospitality professionals through wellness, education and community support.
Jump, our a BevX 2024 Raising the Bar winner, started out in hospitality at age 16, hosting at a small restaurant in her hometown of Chattanooga, TN. “Through college, I kept working in bars and restaurants, and as soon as I turned 21, I fell in love with bartending,” she says.
Not long after moving to Denver, Jump became the opening bar manager for Death & Co. Denver in 2018. “I spent 4.5 years there, learning and growing, until I decided to take a leap into freelancing.”
In addition to running Dim Lights Hospitality, Jump serves as director of operations at Focus on Health, alongside partners, Lauren Paylor O’Brien and Josh Gandee. “I’m currently pursuing a master’s degree in Public Health, with a goal of making health and wellbeing education more accessible to the food and beverage industry.”
Jump this winter will also open her first bar, with her husband, Stuart Jensen, in Denver called The Peach Crease Club. Some of the bar and beverage trends Jump is seeing today include the rise of low- and no-ABV options, ingredient transparency and bringing back Old School bartending techniques. “There’s also a bigger focus on wellness in the industry, from flexible hours to mental health support for staff, which is great to see,” she notes.
Jump and LP O’Brien started Focus on Health because the both struggled to care for themselves while working in such a demanding field, she says. The organization’s initiatives include the No/Low Tour, the Professional Development Scholarship, training programs covering harm reduction and suicide prevention, and the No Proof podcast hosted by Gandee.
“We saw how so many hospitality folks put their own needs last, giving so much to others but rarely taking time for themselves,” Jump says. “Too often, people in this industry feel alone or like there’s no way to get help. Focus on Health is here to break that stigma—by sharing our own experiences and offering training and events, we’re working to make hospitality a better place to work.”
Jump also serves as a mentor to workers in the beverage industry. “When I began managing bars, I thought mentorship was simply about sharing knowledge, correcting mistakes, and celebrating successes, passing down what helped me along the way,” she says.
“I later realized, through mentoring my bar employees and Focus on Health scholars, that true mentorship goes much deeper: It’s about being a supportive sounding board, championing others even when they doubt themselves, and actively creating space for those often overlooked.”
