While I was roaming around downtown last Saturday I came across this lovely mom and daughter duo. They had just come from celebrating the daughter's 20th birthday at Toodles Tea Room and were dressed perfectly for the occasion. Happy birthday to Greydi, you looked delightful on your big day, and so did your mom! Thanks for the photo!
Winter must be a lonely time to own an ice cream shop! The Creamery in Old Colorado City is positively legendary, but as you can see, the delights within were not enough to lure in many (or any) patrons on this sunny but chilly January day.
I took my mom to lunch at the Patty Jewett clubhouse on New Years day, and our table afforded me a great view of the golf course and the entry road. This elegant Ford Coupe was hard to miss on its approach! I pointed it out to my mom, and as we left I decided to try and find it in the parking lot and grab a shot of it. By then most of the golfers had gone home so it was easy to spot. After I got home I showed the picture to Pat, and we agreed that it looks a lot like the famous "ZZ Top car" (a.k.a. the Eliminator), minus the snazzy paint job. It appears to be a 1935 five window Ford Coupe, and it sure is gorgeous. Someone has put a ton of money and love into this automobile.
The latest tenant of 324 E Pikes Peak Avenue is Night Ramen, a restaurant I have yet to sample. This location has seen a lot of businesses come and go over the years. For a long time it was a Goodwill Store, which I appreciated since it's near our house (I love thrift stores!), but that eventually closed and it became a sort of antique mall called the "Treasure Shoppé." This drove me crazy for years, because as a French speaker that little accent over the final E forced me to pronounce it "shoppay" in my head every time I drove past. Now it's a restaurant and I think that's a good fit for the space. In the photo below you can see that it was a filling station and a either a car dealership or a mechanic's shop in years past.
It's already Theme Day again! Every month on the 1st, City Daily Photo bloggers participate in a different theme, and this time it's breakfast. This rather uninspired photo was taken on Thursday as I was lunching with my mom at Bon Ton's. Both of us ordered breakfast food for some reason, even though it was past noon. Bon Ton's is just one of the many restaurants that Pat and I frequent for breakfast or brunch on the weekends when we have time for it. Others include the Omelette Parlor, Mo's Diner, the Patty Jewett Clubhouse, Sheldon's Luncheonette, and the East Coast Deli (my personal favorite). I love breakfast, although weirdly I don't really like eggs! But I'll eat 'em if they're in a burrito, an omelet, or a skillet like this. With lots of cheese, ketchup or salsa. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. How about you?
For more takes on breakfast from City Daily Photo bloggers all over the world, click HERE. Enjoy!
A view looking east on Cucharras at about 25th Street. I finally got to eat at Monse's Taste of El Salvador (it was so good!) with my friend JB last Friday, and this is where we parked. This is one of my favorite old neon signs in town so I thought it deserved to be featured on the blog again.
I had breakfast at the East Coast Deli with a friend last weekend, and we came across a Red Hat Society gathering in progress. Love it! Look at all the fun red hats!
Grabbed a couple of sandwiches at Trivelli's for dinner on Monday: Philly cheesesteak for Pat, vegetarian for me. Yum! I snapped this photo while I waited for my order. Trivelli's is an Old North End/Roswell institution. It's been around since the mid-1970s. This is old school Colorado Springs, friends. It isn't a sit down restaurant; you order at the counter and take your food with you. Trivelli's moved around a bit over the last decade, trying out the sit down business model -- first a couple of doors north, then a few more blocks north, and then all the way east, just outside Peterson Air Force Base. A couple of years ago it returned to the little hole in the wall spot where it started, on North Nevada next door to Murphy's Tavern, and that's definitely all right with me!
I noticed the other day that the building that had long housed the Little Market on Willamette and Prospect is now home to a pizza restaurant. I don't know how long it's been open, I only just now discovered it. It sure smelled good as I stood across the street to take this picture.
I never knew we had a Guamanian barbecue restaurant here! Heck, I didn't even know there was such a thing as Guamanian barbecue! Since I'm a vegetarian it's pretty unlikely I'll ever eat there, but I happen to have a friend who's half Guamanian and I'm definitely going to point her at this place. I'm sure she'll love it.
Here's the charming logo for Poor Richard's, my favorite local restaurant going way back to my college years. I used to spend a lot of time here, but not as much nowadays since I'm always so busy! Still, whenever I go, it's like I'm home. Poor Richard's is not just a restaurant, it's a whole clutch of small enterprises all in a row. There's the restaurant, then there's Little Richard's (only the best toy store in Colorado!), Rico's Wine Bar, and Poor Richard's Books. All of them are interconnected so you can walk through from one to the other, and all are owned by the wonderful Richard Skorman. If you're ever in town, you should definitely stop here.
This is a restaurant I've been meaning to check out for ages, and still haven't done so. I've heard it's excellent and they have great vegetarian/vegan options. Yesterday, my friend JB and I had an impromptu late lunch at Bon Ton's, where Pat and I are regulars. As we left, we drove past colorful Monse's just a block away, and both of us thought darn, we could have had lunch there instead! Old habits are hard to break, I guess, and I do enjoy Bon Ton's! But next time, next time... Monse's, I swear I'm going to eat there soon!
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, my mom turned 89 last week and I took her to brunch at Patty Jewett Golf Course on Sunday to celebrate. It was pretty crowded but every seat there has a view, no matter what table you end up with. Check it out! Oh and everyone in the whole restaurant sang happy birthday to my mom, which was awesome, too. It made her day. 😊
Day four post surgery, and I'm still feeling terrible although I've barely even left the bed. But it was a nice day, so I thought maybe I could manage getting outside for a few minutes. Pat drove me to my studio, where I worked for about 30 minutes, then we drove to Tokyo Joe's to pick up some lunch to go. By the time we got there I was exhausted again -- so here's the view from the passenger seat, which is about all I could muster.
About ten or twelve years ago I had some fairly major abdominal surgery, something called a Nissen fundoplication, and for weeks afterward I was weak and miserable. In fact it was months before I felt even close to normal again. I figured that having my gallbladder removed wasn't as dire by comparison, but this post-op feeling sure feels much the same. I hope my convalescence goes much more quickly. I can't afford to be sidelined for much longer.
In the absence of any recent "man on the street" photos (it's been too cold to go out style hunting), I give you this image from a shoot I did at Chuy's Restaurant last month. These young ladies are all modeling prom gowns that can be had at Bridal Elegance Boutique. What a lovely group, and the dresses are so colorful!
I had to do a photo shoot at Chuy's about three weeks ago. It's a chain restaurant featuring Mexican or Tex-Mex food, and the décor is punctuated with lots of vintage items, like the back end of this car, for instance, and old Formica tables. It's meant to throw back to old Mexican restaurants of yore, I guess. But this Chuy's is in a brand new strip mall that isn't even finished yet, on the northeast side of town. Nothing much vintage over there, that's for sure. If you want to see the real thing, hit up one of my favorite restaurants, the Blue Bonnet in Denver, which first opened in the 1930s, so it really is vintage, not cunning or cute or trying too hard, but just plain old. And colorful to boot. The décor evolved organically over the decades. It's almost like the interior designer at Chuy's went to the Blue Bonnet and decided to just copy it. Oh, well. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so they say!
There are a couple of new Filipino restaurants in town, and on Saturday my mom and I sampled one of them. Sarap (which means delicious and is pronounced sah-RAHP) was preceded in the same location by two other Filipino restaurants: the short lived Bayanihan Café, and before that the You-Ka Café for a few years. My mom and I were big fans of the You-Ka so we thought we'd try Sarap. It was great! I'm a vegetarian, and the You-Ka always had vegetarian pancit on offer, but unfortunately Sarap does not, only pancit with meat in it. Apparently they do usually serve a vegetarian curry but they were out, so that left me a little stumped. The chef was kind enough to whip up some stir fried veggies for me in a curry sauce (I don't know if it's the same as their vegetarian curry) and it was absolutely sarap! Photo below. It was so good! Two thumbs up for sure, but since there was literally nothing else on the menu that I could eat except for desserts, I think I'll try the other Filipino restaurant that just opened, the Kamayan Hideaway. It's much closer to my house and it sounds like they serve vegetarian lumpia, hooray! That just warms the cockles of my half Filipino heart!
There's a new tearoom in the spot formerly occupied by a very cool "speakeasy" called Brooklyn's on Boulder, which unfortunately closed recently. Big loss, that. This place couldn't be more different. As you can see, it's very girly. Not really my cup of tea, to be honest (PUN INTENDED!) but I have many friends who would probably love to check it out. It's like the ultimate feminine hangout spot. In fact, as I was pointing my camera at it to take this picture, a gaggle of women emerged from within and performed prolonged goodbyes on the sidewalk in front. Presumably they had gathered for some kind of girly function, like a baby shower or whatever. One of these days I'll go in there and see what's what.
Last week we stopped into Cy's for lunch. Cy's is the real deal, a 1950s drive-in diner serving burgers, fries, shakes and the like. Not fancy schmancy burgers with bleu cheese and caramelized onions or whatever. Just burgers. I don't think their menu has changed since... ever, I guess! Pat had a burger (naturally) and I had a grilled cheese sandwich. So good! I especially love their french fries. Do you have an authentic drive-in diner left in your city? Cy's is a Colorado Springs institution!
Our resident celebrity chef, Brother Luck, has recently opened a new establishment in the space formerly occupied by an earlier endeavor of his, Lucky Dumpling. Before it was Lucky Dumpling it was a great bar called the Triple Nickel, which was adversely affected by the pandemic but soon reemerged in a new space just about a block south of there, so all's well that ends well I suppose. I never did sample the fare at Lucky Dumpling. This new place, called the Tipperary Cocktail Parlor, seems to be its polar opposite: it's drinks oriented and has an Irish theme! I guess I'll have to grab a couple of girlfriends and check it out one of these days, because it sure looks cool.
