Wife and I are headed to Colorado Springs tomorrow to spend a few days and celebrate our anniversary. We've never been so we are doing the touristy stuff (Pike's Peak, Royal Gorge, etc.). The one thing we don't have nailed down is food. The night before we fly out we'll be eating at Buckhorn Exchange in Denver, but the rest of the trip is wide open. We are pretty adventurous diners and no cuisine is off limits, so any and all recommendations are welcome.

We did an family trip to CS this summer and stayed at the Broadmoor. Generally speaking, we found the food options to be generic...lots of chains and mostly burger joints.

We did find one fantastic breakfast place...Old World Bakery. It's in an old high school that's been converted to house a brewery, bakery and meat market.

Paging Grandma Cabbage Fart...

There are several places off tejon street that are solid. If you want steakhouse, The Famous is a nice place (if you go during the week the bartender is named Cray and he's a good one, there's a pretty good Italian place (the name escapes me) that has cheap wine and good buffalo ravioli, a few burger joints, a pizza place/bookstore, as well as a gastropub all within walking distance of each other. My dad has gone to The Rabbit Hole, and says it's good, but I've never been there.

From my officemate who grew up in springs (it's in his words):

- The Garden of the Gods trading post has surprisingly good buffalo burgers
- Edelweiss German restaurant is awesome
- Briarhurst manor is expensive, but "f'n rad" (his words)
- Bristol Brewery is pretty cool, it's in an old school house
- Fargo's pizza is "interesting", but in the ghetto and not the best pizza
- Chinatown is his favorite restaurant. better than average Chinese food, get the pu pu platter
- The original King's Chef diner is in a little castle off costilla street and pretty neat
- The Golden Bee is a cool bar by the Broadmoor

Hope that helps..

Wines of Colorado is amazing. It's at the base of Pikes Peak and has a nice patio by a creek. If you're really adventurous try the veggie burger! Both my husband and I (who are NOT vegetarians in the slightest) love it. They also do wine tastings in their wine room. Jack Quinn is a fun bar downtown and y'all should also walk through Manitou Springs. Have fun, we love it there!

Not food related but if you have time tour the Air Force Academy. Beautiful campus especially the chapel

Thanks for the help. We are arriving soon and will take advantage!

El Vicino had pretty good pizza.

Kings Chef Diner for breakfast!

Beau Jo's Mountain Pie (pizza) is a must. Trust me, some of the best pizza you will ever eat.

On the lighter side there is a ... peanut butter & jelly deli downtown that is good place to go just to say you did.

This being the OB, I should remind you that you CAN NOT take weapons onto USAFA, so lock them in your hotel room. Sometimes the guard people want your car registration and insurance, too. Once you are on the grounds, you have a surprising amount of freedom to snoop around. The exception is the actual cadet area: the dorms, classrooms and mess hall, which are off limits . But you can look over the Terrazo, their Quad, from the Chapel area. Try to be there at formation, they march to chow. I recommend a guided tour of the chapel to learn as much as possible.

The visitors center there is nice, you can also self tour their sports complex, which has a gym, ice rink, swimming pool and more. Look for the air field viewing area on the south end, which has some airplanes on a stick, and you can watch glider and parachute Ops if your timing is good. The best views are after entering the north gate. There's also a B-52 on display on that road.

In the Royal Gorge area, we enjoyed he train through the gorge. We had tickets for the skyliner car, but spent the trip in the open gondola car. At Canon City, go over Skyline Drive. It is spectacular, and there are dinosaur footprints in the rock along the road.

Just finished dinner at Edelweiss and it was legit. Thanks for the recommendation!

Phantom Canyon (already mentioned)
Jose Muldoon's on Tejon downtown
China Village on Union Blvd, just south of Platte Ave

We can't thank all of you for your recommendations. We've had a ball out here. Skyline drive was amazing amd the dinisaur tracks were great.

Update:

Chapel at USAFA is being renovated, so you can't go in. Heck, you can't really even see it, as it's covered in tarps and scaffolding.