Just the tip (tri-tip, that is)
Side Dish presents a June barbecue collaboration with Ranch Foods Direct and Gather Food Studio + more food & drink news
Exciting news this month, Schnipsters:
Side Dish and its content partner Gather Food Studio are teaming up throughout June with area agriculture outfit Ranch Foods Direct to promote a “Schnip’s Pick” cut of the month inside the company’s local retail markets. Gather has provided both a recipe and custom spice blend that’s available alongside the sustainably raised beef. Having tasted this featured tri-tip roast with Gather Memphis-Style Mustard Rub —as part of necessary vetting and quality control, of course … ahem and yum-yum — I can tell you it’s absolutely damn delicious and I’m confident you’ll love it.
I’m grateful to both businesses for their support, specifically Ranch Food Direct’s sponsorship of this unique collaboration. Read below for full details. The whole public is invited to take part in this promotion, but there’s specials for Side Dish subscribers. If you aren’t already a subscriber, signed up for my weekly emails, then click the below button to perform penance and become culinarily relevant again. Cheers!
So, as I said above, I’m confident you’ll love this recipe if you make the trip over to Ranch Food’s Direct’s markets at 1228 E. Fillmore Street or 4635 Town Center Drive. You’ll find the tri-tip on special this month, priced by the pound, with accompanying Gather spice packets available for a reduced cost of $5 as part of this promotion.
From Cortney Smith at Gather:
Our Memphis Mustard Rub is a complex blend of herbs and spices made to stand up to a long smoke or high heat on the grill. This blend features flavors of mustard and garlic, with a finish of herbs and a touch of cinnamon and citrus. Use this spice rub generously for best results, creating a crust on the exterior of your meat. Made to highlight the delicious flavor of ranch-raised Callicrate beef, this blend enhances the meat’s natural flavor without overwhelming it. Finish with the mop sauce for added sweet, tangy flavor and the perfect amount of char.
Gather Spice Blends are hand-blended at Gather Food Studio in our spice room. We don’t use any preservatives, additives or chemicals. All of our spices are sourced, blended and packed by us, so we can assure the highest quality of products for your kitchen.
From Ranch Foods Direct owner Mike Callicrate:
The Callicrate tri-tip eats above its place in the animal. It’s great for smoking — or, when portioned — it grills as good as any steak.
A couple of final notes about this promotion:
Join me between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday June 10 at Ranch Foods Direct’s 4635 Town Center Drive location for a cook-out and local vendor public market which will continue second Saturdays monthly. RFD will be grilling Callicrate beef burgers and pork-cheddar brats for $5 to $7 (relative to fixins). And they’ll be giving away free samples of beef and chicken spiedie meat plus “Beef Flanken Ribs” marinated by house chef Adrian Mota. It will be a great time to pick up tri-tip and Gather’s spice blend and shop the wider market. Plus, I’ll be there handing out Side Dish stickers to subscribers — which you can also pick up from me on June 15 at the next Sip with Schnip at The Carter Payne from 5-7 p.m.
Get your sticker! Be like Candace and come chat with me at The Carter Payne. About those stickers, consider them your passport to cool perks around town. At least, that’s the goal; this benefit’s in its infancy as I grow my Substack and take on new partners and sponsors. More announcements as I have them. But, as of now, paid subscribers get their first beer free during my Sip with Schnip happy hours, while free subscribers get a drink discount. At Ranch Foods Direct, as part of this June collaboration, my paid subscribers can claim a *one-time* free pound of 80/20 ground beef; paid and free subscribers will get 5% off their total market purchase. (If you aren’t able to see me for a sticker, show proof of Side Dish membership on your phone — honor system mi amigos!)
Lastly, if you want to learn more about better ranching practices that help restore and regenerate land versus deplete its resources, listen to Ranch Foods Direct owner Mike Callicrate on Episode 5 of my State of Plate Podcast, “Food Fight.” And I recommend subscribing to his No-Bull blog for the latest on his activist efforts. Callicrate has been featured over the years by many major news outlets, including Vice News on HBO, and he recently appeared in the environmental documentary Day Zero. He also advised on best-selling books that include Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Jarhead Coffee replaces Pikes Perk at OG location
If you’ve lived in the Springs a long time, you may know that the history of Pikes Perk dates back more than 20 years to original owner Rick Roehrman, who founded the roastery and provided beans to several locations franchised by other owners. Earlier this year, Roehrman sold the roastery. There’s still a Pikes Perk Mountain Shadows at 6894 Centennial Blvd. and The Perk Downtown is another existent offshoot. Plus, there’s the Colorado Springs Airport location. But Roehrman’s original spot at 5965 N. Academy Boulevard has recently become Jarhead Coffee.
Tina Vilca (with some support from her husband Joseph, a defense contractor) is Jarhead’s owner. She started her business as a pop-up coffee stand inside of Pikes Peak Athletics, selling to families attending swim meets and such, and still operates another current Jarhead location inside of the Colorado Springs VA Clinic at 3141 Centennial Blvd. that’s open to the public. To make a long story short: Tina was originally looking to purchase the roastery from Roehrman, but in meeting with the other Perk-related owners, she learned that the latest N. Academy Boulevard location owner Troy Hommertzheim was looking to sell. So she went the cafe versus roastery route and bought the biz from him.
About that name? Jarhead is of course the slang term for a Marine. Tina was in the Marines for five years, completing a 15-month tour in Iraq that ended in 2010. She was part of the Lioness Program, which “was formed… to provide culturally-sensitive searches on Iraqi women” given Muslim culture, which forbids a man to touch a woman not related to him. Hence the need for female soldiers to accompany units of men. She worked near the border with Jordan, also assisting with humanitarian aid in refugee camps. After the military, she was a writer/editor for the Marine Corps Association Foundation, then performed the same duties for the National Archives under the Obama and Trump administrations.
Once Joseph left his military service, they moved to the Springs in 2019. The pandemic came along, and Tina handled mom duties for the couple’s five combined children. Following the success of that pop-up stand she opened during that time, she bought Pikes Perk from Hommertzheim in September, 2022, operating it under that name until she was able to overhaul the branding. She’d also sold cold brew at the Old Colorado City farmers market last year, she tells me, so some folks may already be familiar with her logo design.
To get into the coffee game, Tina was mentored by her now-dear-friend Trina Lemons, who operated 14 coffee shops on military bases in the Springs over the past 20 years. Then came study under Glenn Powell of Barista Espresso and Specialty Roasting; he’s another coffee pioneer in the Springs area, in the biz for three decades.
She now serves beans at Jarhead that are roasted by Barista — Powell formulated her exclusive blends, including Trina’s Blend, a light/medium roast used for the house drip. The Full Metal Jacket blend is the house espresso. She won’t disclose either blend’s exact country-of-origin makeup, but says Trina’s features a trio of South American beans mixed with one Asian bean. And the Full Metal Jacket hosts five South American beans. (“Full” indeed.)
Tina notes that she’s refreshed the food menu on site, changing from her predecessor’s pre-made/reheat model to burritos and sandwiches made-to-order. She also buys quiches and puff pastries seasonally from Kogler’s Bakery out of Lakewood. Other cakes, muffins, shortbreads and lemon bars are coming from Shamrock.
As I sit with Tina in her shop for our interview, we both sip on her favorite house latte that she’s provided for us. It’s called the Peeps, and has white chocolate, vanilla and marshmallow Monin syrups. She tells me she’s hooked on it and her staff know to prep her one when they see her arriving each day. I order mine half-sweet because I’m not a big sweet/flavored latte fan, and that allows me to still taste some of the medium espresso flavor through the sugar components; for its style, it’s nice.
While chatting, she tells me the spot’s longtime loyal clientele have been supportive of the changes and have thus far embraced Jarhead. She hints at possible future locations, aiming to put a Marines presence in a military city otherwise devoted to the Army and Air Force. “There’s not many of us walking around here,” she says. “That’s why they call us the few and the proud.
“It’s nice to be able to serve again, just in a different manner.”
Pho King Wing
Free subscribers may now read my full review of Pho King Wing, here. And yes, it is pronounced “fuh” so have fun with that.
All the haps this week
• From Side Dish partner Focus on the Beer, Ryan has the rundown on Battle Mountain’s recent closure in Colorado Springs and reappearance in Castle Rock at a new location. Catch a grand opening celebration this weekend, June 2-4, with beer releases that include a chai tea ale and Olathe sweet corn saison.
• The French Kitchen is celebrating its sixth anniversary with a huge party from 7:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 3. I’ll be on site co-judging a competition between five local chefs, with a $1,000 cash prize on the line. The competitors are in-house Pastry Chef Instructor Nate; in-house Chef Instructor Andre; Eric Brenner, Chef/Owner of Red Gravy; Mario Vasquez, Chef/Owner of Colorado Craft; and Carolina Ascanio, Private Chef. Visit this events page for full details about the all-day, free event and I will see you there.
• Five Star Food Stop is hosting a grand opening on Saturday, June 3 as well. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will feature “samples of wings, egg rolls, frozen custard, and more from talented local artisan vendors.” Five Star is a commissary kitchen at 4621 Austin Bluffs Pkwy., and there’s space available for new food trucks, caterers, ghost kitchens, etc.
• The Colorado Farm & Art Market kicks off for the growing season Wednesday, June 7 at The Well downtown (a new location this year). That’ll be followed by the Saturday, June 10 launch at Margarita at Pine Creek. Click the links for times and full details.
• Huevones and Makaw’s food trucks have teamed up for a Food Truck Summer Market at 116 E. Boulder St., in the parking lot behind Ohana Kava Bar. They’re calling it El Callejon (“the alley”) on Boulder. They’ll have guest artists via CC Mobile Arts and musicians, plus lunch specials. They plan to run from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Fridays and 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdays.
Parting Shot
