Sheldon's Luncheonette

My favorite little diner, the Detz Café, closed down on October 31st. It had been operation for 26 years. I heard that the owners simply wanted to retire. Before it was the Detz, it was the Quality Café and I have great memories of going there in the wee hours and having coffee and late night breakfast with my crazy friends.

The Detz was great. It had a Formica lunch counter and wood paneling on all the walls. All the senior citizens would go there after church on Sundays -- when Pat and I went, we were almost always the youngest people there. The food was wonderful and I loved the servers. Darn it! Where will we go now? Sheldon's Luncheonette, that's where!

Sheldon's is a Colorado Springs institution, having been around for nearly 50 years. It's located on North Nevada, over by the dog track (there's also a second location on 8th Street). I've lived here for decades and I'm ashamed to say I've never eaten at Sheldon's! My mom and I decided to try it out for lunch yesterday and it was delightful. We sat at the counter and I noticed that the server knew every patron's name. That's a good sign. My friend Kirk happened to be there (I always seem to run into Kirk at restaurants!) and he told me that Sheldon's has the best open faced turkey sandwich in the universe. I'm a vegetarian so I opted for grilled cheese, but I did get a peek at someone else's order of the open faced turkey sandwich and it looked delicious!

Pat actually went to high school with the son of the people who started Sheldon's Luncheonette. They had an interesting back story involving a sailboat and New Zealand. I don't know all the details so you'll have to use your imagination. All I know is that it was dumb of me not to go to there before now. And I can't wait to have Sunday morning breakfast at Sheldon's!