2023 Year in Review

Side Dish hits rewind to examine the past 12 months' biggest food/drink happenings + toast the new year ahead with gratitude

We turn our backs on 2023, with our brand new t-shirts, of course. (It’s actually just Ryan Hannigan and me at Fossil Craft Beer Co. enjoying some pints and planning our new podcast release soon.)

What an amazing, exhausting year! Side Dish is only nine months old but has already grown into a publication achieving tens of thousands of views per month. I’ve produced more than 75 newsletters and reviews in total in 2023. It’s been a blast (if a challenge) and I’m wordlessly grateful for all the support this community has shown me. I’ve also loved meeting so many Side Dish readers at events over the months, including at my 3rd Thursday Sip with Schnip nights at The Carter Payne.

I’m super appreciative to all those who’ve signed up for this newsletter — and especially those generous eaters out there who’ve become paid subscribers, helping directly fund my work. As well, a huge shout-out to my sponsors and collaborative partners. While on that topic, it’s your last chance to catch my end-of-year subscription deal, the best rate available, which includes perks:

You can also help Side Dish by sharing links with your friends and by following me for extra content on my social pages. Very soon, I’ll have my new t-shirts and stickers for sale. And I’ll be announcing details for how to tune into my new podcast, tap&table, in partnership with Focal Pint and Ryan Hannigan. (Whereas State of Plate was a limited series, tap&table aims to be ongoing, bimonthly.)

That’s it for happy housekeeping. Now, let’s get to what went down around town and inside the food and drink scene in the year MMXXIII:

Winter (January-March)

• Brother Luck closed Lucky Dumpling and launched Folklore and Tipperary Cocktail Parlor with Wobbly Olive and Allusion Speakeasy’s owners Sean and Inez Fitzgerald. (Six months later they closed it, leaving Tipperary in place; it’s now joined by Eleven18.)

• Chef Mark Henry rebranded Rooster’s House of Ramen, turning it into Kelley’s Spiedies. (In October, he closed it, partnering with the Fitzgeralds, from attached Allusion Speakeasy, to create a second Wobbly Olive location).

• Paradox Beer Company launched a kick-ass-legit New Mexican food menu.

Paradox brewer/owner/chefs Brian Horton (left) and Jeff Aragon.

• Big Table opened a branch in town, offering assistance to those in the restaurant industry and “serving those who serve.”

• I published my first Side Dish with Schniper newsletter on March 22. (Within days of being laid off from my longtime newspaper job at the CS Indy. Weeks later, I began syndicating a portion of my content back to them.)

• I fell in love with a cow named Pumpkin, while writing a story on PBJ Cattle Co. and their yak herd in Divide. (Sadly, I can’t link to that story because it was published on the short-lived sixty35media.org website — now dead. It wasn’t republished on the CS Indy’s website once Sixty 35 folded back into it in either. And now, CS Indy might be hooves up as well. Thankfully, I saved a paper copy at home. Phew. And moo.)

Me feeding Pumpkin. A yak. My CS Indy cover story. And rancher Jessy Burton giving Pumpkin a kiss.

Spring (April-June)

• Dizzy Charlie’s Jazz Pop-Ups launched regular music shows at Summa.

• Story Coffee Company expanded into Old Colorado City.

• Fuel & Iron opened as Pueblo’s first food hall (with Bingo Burger sister outfit Diavolo hot chicken as one of the vendors).

• Provision Bread & Bakery opened downtown.

• Sushi Row launched downtown via the group behind Dos Santos, Dos Dos and White Pie. (I later penned this pretty glowing review.)

• A renovated Grand View restaurant reopened inside the Garden of the Gods Resort and Club. (And the gorgeous space is open to non-members.)

The unparalleled view of Garden of the Gods from Grand View.

• The Broadmoor’s Seven Falls celebrated its 140th birthday (and bubble waffles arrived to the venue).

• I took the first tour of the soon-to-open Casa Bonita, the landmark Lakewood Mexican eatery immortalized by South Park.

• I got stung by a bee at Bloom Ultra Lounge (and liked it).

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Happy New Year from Side Dish’s lead sponsor

Ranch Foods Direct wishes you all a wonderful new year ahead. I want to wish them the same and extend a heartfelt thank-you for their sponsorship support during Side Dish’s launch year. They’ve also been a fantastic partner for our monthly recipe collaborations with Gather Food Studio. Ranch Foods Direct provides the sustainably raised, superior-quality beef and pork products that act as the foundation and inspiration for each month’s recipe. Remember when you’re shopping at either retail market in town to tell the staff that Schniper sent you (to receive 5% your whole basket). It helps highlight your support of Side Dish as you also support this valued area ranching outfit which stands as the resistance to big, corporate feedlot culture. Make the more humane, healthful choice with Ranch Foods Direct products in 2024.

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Summer (July-September)

• Taste of Pikes Peak returned after a hiatus, and was a smashing success outdoors for the first time. (I got to judge with Mayor Yemi Mobolade and Switchbacks FC Head Coach Stephen Hogan.)

Mayor Yemi, outdressing us all as usual.

• I reviewed some true Texas and authentic Hawaiian eats.

• Odyssey Gastropub debuted a new chef and significantly overhauled menu (amidst news that Colorado was #1 for restaurant inflation this year).

• Indvstry Video Bar brought the beats to the former Gold Room space. (And Bar Thirty Three is about to add some swank downstairs below Indvstry with its end-of-the-year opening.)

• I drank with a Balgrog in Mordor.

• I went on Loving Living Local in late August, where anchor Jennifer Musa said “Nobody covers Southern Colorado food like Side Dish.” (I returned to air in early December to be interviewed by Matt Meister on the Fox21 Morning Show.)

• Celebrity Chef Robert Irvine from Food Network’s Restaurant: Impossible interviewed with Side Dish ahead of his visit to the Springs. He pushed back against those griping about chain restaurants, advising “… maybe compete with them? Maybe do some of what they do but better?”

• As part of our ongoing, monthly recipe collaboration with Gather Food Studio and Ranch Foods Direct, we asked you to be a big jerk. (But if that’s not your speed, you an also join us for a Green Dream and a Belgian beer, here.)

• Taco truck favorite El Chapin won us over with their new Burgers & Shakes concept (also parked outside Ranch Foods Direct’s Fillmore retain location).

• Eleven area chefs told Side Dish how they approach pretty plate presentations (i.e. I made you a food porn gallery, but with context.)

• The Michelin Guide doled out its first-ever round of stars and nods in Colorado (mostly in Denver), creating a controversy around their perceived pay-to-play system. (Visit COS declined to pony up for consideration, and comment as to why they didn’t.)

Fall (October-December)

• Side Dish went behind the scenes at Josh & John’s to see how the ice cream is made.

• We met a Manitou Springs Sherpa (who runs a Nepali eatery in town).

• I faced the Reaper at Dave’s Hot Chicken (and temporarily blinded myself).

• Will the former stalwart dining spot the Blue Star return in 2024? The one guy who’ll be able to say for sure told Side Dish what he knows.

• Hey meow. We finally got a cat café.

Image courtesy The Biscuit Factory’s Instagram.

• The Colorado Springs Airport teased its upcoming lineup of local food vendors as it undergoes renovations.

• People still don’t believe me that this was my first time to ever go to an IKEA — I popped my lingonberry and found no love for the house meatballs.

• Master Blender & Director of Quality at Sazerac Drew Mayville told Side Dish about the art of blending whiskies during his visit for the Broadmoor’s Meet the Maker whiskey dinner series. (Sazerac is behind highly allocated and coveted labels like Blanton’s, E.H. Taylor and Pappy Van Winkle.)

• Hold Fast Coffee Co. turned 10 (and I’m sad I’ve run out of my special anniversary Tiki Blend Colombian beans at home).

• Wow there were a lot of food and drink events in November!

• Round 5 of our ongoing Bar Battle series at Tipperary Cocktail Parlor acted as the semifinals, setting the stage for a sure-to-be-epic Battle Royale to play out on (a rescheduled) Jan. 22, 2024. It’s going to be bartenders competing from The Archives, District Elleven, Tipperary and 503W.

• FO4R takes on the chains at Interquest with an indie multiplex while revamped/rebranded food hall Avenue 19 gets fancy upstairs with Inefable.

The rooftop balcony at FO4R’s Pause Ultra Lounge & Sushi.

• Phantom Canyon celebrated their 30th anniversary and holy shit there’s a guy who’s been there since day one! (Cheers to Johnny Mills.)

• A fire took Taste of Jerusalem and its neighbors out of the action for a while.

• A mild town panic ensued when The Green Line Grill announced financial trouble, then closure. But it’s already back open and trying to breathe new life into its bar side. Meanwhile, other outfits are struggling too and some are closing for good.

Parting shot

Here’s one of my favorite images from 2023 — which pretty much sums up how tired I feel during Side Dish’s continued startup phase. It was taken at the Smokin’ the Ute Pass BBQ Contest in Divide in late August. Paragon Culinary School chef/owner and Black Bear Distillery founder Victor Matthews wept over my broken body after we co-judged a sickening (but delicious) amount of barbecue. The Ute Pass Regional Ambulance District attended to me (and thankfully didn’t send a big bill afterwards). In a snapshot, it shows how hard I plan to work for my readers, the restaurant/bar industry and our wider community in the year ahead. I won’t stop until I drop.

Schniper and pals in a dramatic Renaissance painting pose.