The first day of a new month means it's Theme Day for participating City Daily Photo bloggers, and this time the theme is purple. Since I'm sure you've seen enough purple flowers on this blog (ha!), I decided to find another subject for the theme. For as long as I can remember, this liquor store on Fillmore Street has been purple, although it seems to have faded to more of a pastel lavender in recent years.
For more depictions of purple by CDP bloggers everywhere, click HERE. Enjoy!
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.
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.
All the creative seating from yesterday's post was situated around what is now apparently called the Meanwhile Block. See the description below. These little buildings have seen a few local businesses come and go over the years. I don't know how long the Meanwhile Block has been there, but long may it live. It sounds like a cool place to hang out.
"In the space between what was and what will be is a canvas for creativity and a playground for curiosity, where something new and interesting is always just around the corner. Welcome to a space for dreamers & doers, for art and expression, for brilliant ideas and sharing experiences."
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.
Colorado Springs' best garden center, The Good Earth, closed down a year or two ago after decades in business, and everyone's been sad about it, including me. I recently learned that a new garden center will soon be opening in its old location. Hooray! It will be called Pura Vida. That tells me that the owners must either be Costa Rican or simply love Costa Rica. It doesn't officially open until next spring, but they're having an open house this Saturday and I plan on going.
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!
If you read this blog regularly, you probably already know that I'm an avid sewist. That and knitting are really my only "crafts." I'm not handy with a glue gun and don't know how to pronounce Cricut. That kind of stuff was never my jam. But I do love to sew and knit! I can crochet, too. These skills were taught to me when I was a child in the Philippines, so maybe that's why they've stuck with me. At any rate, sewing makes me a fan of The Mill Outlet, which is a locally owned fabric store on Prospect Street just south of Fillmore. I've been a regular customer for many years. This is a large city, and people don't like to drive far outside their zone to get what they need, but with the nationwide closing of Joann's Fabrics and Crafts, The Mill Outlet has suddenly become a hot spot, even for those who rarely venture west of Academy Boulevard. I'm so glad of it! I went there a couple of weekends ago and it was actually hard to find a parking spot. The place was buzzing. When a big box store opens, it makes the mom and pop stores wither and die. But when a big box store closes, here's your proof that the opposite thing happens. Long live The Mill Outlet!
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!
Today I stopped by Adventures in Mini Golf just to see if there was anything worth photographing. To my surprise they were open, though now that I've had a chance to look at their site, it does mention that their winter hours are based on a "play it by ear" system depending on the weather. Temperatures were in the mid fifties with a chilly breeze, which didn't deter the two patrons that I spied putting away on the other side of the fence. As for me, I stayed in the parking lot and grabbed a shot of good old Paul Bunyan. I couldn't resist -- he's so photogenic.
My birthday was in mid December, but because of gallbladder problems and subsequent surgery, I didn't get to celebrate with my friends until today. The plan was to spend the day in Denver with Jennifer, JB and Teresa, to shop at a fabric store called Allyn's first, and then hit up the Maurice Sendak show the Denver Art Museum. Unfortunately the weather wasn't very cooperative; it snowed heavily, so it was slow going and we had to skip the Denver Art Museum. We did, however, have a fun time fabric shopping! I first heard about Allyn's from watching one of my favorite YouTube channels, The Closet Historian, which features an incredibly skilled Denver area sewist named Bianca. It's not a large building but it is jam packed to the rafters with fabric, a lot of it very fanciful and over the top, and there is a room at the back dedicated to bridal fabric and embellishments. There's a full basement too, again stuffed with bolt after bolt of fabric. If you're a sewist and you're ever in the Denver area, I highly recommend you visit Allyn's.
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 like finding new murals around town and am usually impressed by them, but this one's kind of meh in my opinion. It's not bad, just not the same level we're used to seeing around here. By the way this is on the building just north of where my studio was on Weber -- I relocated in 2018 but was next door to this building for 10 years. Ever since I moved, it seems like this little section of Weber Street has changed a lot. This side of the building used to house Bon Shoe Repair, but Wes retired a few years ago it seems. (Honestly I don't know if he's still alive, I hope he is but he was pretty old.) There was another cobbler in there after Wes, a Russian guy, but now it seems there's a tattoo artist in that space and presumably they're the one who painted this mural. Meh.
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!
