Dine & Dash: Greener pastures 🍽

The Happy Cow focuses on clean food sourcing for its burgers and gluten-free sides; Misty Mountain Collective touts eco conscious coffee service in a creative, plant-filled space

The Happy Cow

Happy Cow owners Delphy and Jordan Ranieri. Photos by Matthew Schniper.

“We want to bring healthy food to the community,” says Happy Cow co-owner Delphy Ranieri by way of providing a mission statement when we meet. I catch her and her husband/co-owner Jordan at their bustling new cafe just a week after its soft opening.

It’s located in the former Pop Kitchen spot in Old Colorado City, and is leading promotions with their use of Ranch Foods Direct wagyu beef and A2, low-temp-pasteurized, regeneratively farmed milk (from Origin). Plus honey, maple syrup and coconut sugar as the only sweeteners, and no seed oils used anywhere in their cooking. Instead:

Their mindfulness starts with being parents to three kids, so they care what goes into their bodies. Jordan also suffers from Rheumatoid Arthritis, so his diet had to shift to reduce inflammation. He’s eaten gluten-free for the past five years, which explains the GF chicken fritters on the menu, battered in rice flour. Those and house-cut fries are fried in Ranch Foods Direct tallow. And though I haven’t had fast-food nuggets in decades (to be able to compare to accurately), they match up as a pleasing little crispy bite, steamy and tender on the inside — an easy treat dipped into house garlic mayo.

The Happy Wagyu Burger and a three-piece plate of Happy Herd Fritters.

You can also order burgers with a gluten-free hash brown “bun” versus the standard one, which is a custom sourdough brioche, sweetened with a touch of honey and made locally by a business named Nature’s Start Bread Co. The burgers are composed of two, 2.5-ounce smash patties that are topped with grass-fed cheddar, house Happy Cow Sauce (basically a Big Mac sauce spinoff), pickles, caramelized onions and lettuce and tomato. Those are $13.99, and a bacon burger option for $16.75 uses Ranch Foods Direct bacon, the same cheddar, pickles, red onion and garlic mayo. I try the former and it’s a really good rendition of a classic fast food burger, which is what the couple says they’re going for. “Except we don’t want you to feel like garbage after eating it.”

My tallow fries are nice and salty but a bit limp. When Jordan inquires about them after my meal (which is when I introduce myself to them), I give him the feedback and he says they aren’t supposed to be that way. It’s early days and they’re very much still working out systems. He fires a fresh batch and returns with a more-crisp version that shows the ideal plating, or tray-ing in this case, as Happy Cow serves on small metal trays with paper liners and burger wraps.

I learn that Delphy, a Springs native, has 15 years industry experience that includes catering, bartending and fine dining. That’s between here and Chicago, where Jordan’s from. They met at pre-Amazon-owned Whole Foods, where they were both in cooking roles in the back kitchen. Jordan moved on to a retail role in the cannabis industry, and after being laid off recently from remote work, he was inspired to give a restaurant a go. Delphy says they’ve talked about doing it for the better part of a decade. “We decided it’s time to go for it,” she says.

After a months-long search they connected with Pop Kitchen’s Amy Kunstle, who was very supportive of their concept, they say. “We weren’t planning on a coffee shop — just burgers,” says Delphy, “but when we found this, it was too good to pass up.” It was already outfitted with an espresso machine and drip coffee systems and Kunstle had done an immaculate overhaul of the space a couple years ago that no humble startup would have been able to afford.

From the user side, I have to say the space is certainly the most obvious aspect to what’s clunky already about Happy Cow’s layout. It’s designed for a cute coffee cafe or tea house, with ample upstairs seating (via a winding staircase or an elevator) and very limited downstairs seating. Lines easily bottleneck at the entryway and those waiting to pickup coffee drinks at the counter have to linger there a bit before finding seating and awaiting their name to be called by food runners, who come out from the kitchen.

The Ranieris are well aware of the hiccups and diligently working to correct them real-time. They have cubbies built into a central area for self-serve water and table bussing. The cubbies have been designed to correspond with beepers to alert guests when their order is ready for pickup, kind of like at a food truck. They just haven’t had time to set them up and test it all yet, as the priority was to get open. They’re looking at additional evening staffing too due to huge community response already.

They’re also slowly adding to their canned drink selections, which already include healthier soda choices and some craft beers. Procuring some wines will be next, as customers have already requested them.

Coffee beans are sourced from Barista Espresso just down the road on Colorado Avenue. They’re using a Brazilian blend. They make traditional drinks plus some speciality lattes, utilizing house-made syrups.

A final detail that’s family friendly: They’ve added a kids play area upstairs in one of the rooms, with toys and a thick rug to crawl around on. It’s important to Delphy to offer that space, which is missing in most restaurants today. It reminds her of growing up playing in the back of Poor Richard’s downtown.

It’s a thoughtful touch, and just one more aspect of Happy Cow that speaks to its holistic health focus that ultimately makes it not just another burger joint.

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Misty Mountain Collective

Photos by Matthew Schniper.

I don’t know if anyone still does anymore, but back in the day we used to lovingly refer to Manitou Springs’ Maté Factor Café as Ewok Village. You know, ‘cuz the woodwork and forest treehouse feel.

I hadn’t thought about that in a while, but walking into two-week old Misty Mountain Collective — just a block down from Colorado College’s hockey arena, on Nevada Avenue — totally reminded me of it. I think the above photo speaks to why.

Whereas Evergreen (just on the other side of CC’s arena, on Tejon Street) has more of an elegant fine dining vibe with its mini jungle of fake foliage, Misty Mountain holds more of a DIY vibe: funky and artsy, decorated with other items like branches and small craftworks, even a vintage phone.

Co-owner Dakota Wilkerson described the atmosphere to the the Pikes Peak Bulletin earlier this month as “a witch’s cabin inside a national park” and “like an apothecary.” Wilkerson’s name might be familiar to some, as she’s the bass player in the local “moody witchfolk” band Moth Season.

She isn’t on site during my visit, so my host is barista Cameron MacKenzie, a local standup comedian who tells me he used to work at the original Humble Coffee location with Wilkerson. “We’re all artists of some sort,” he tells me, saying they view Misty Mountain as a shared artist space where they want guests to feel comfortable coming to work and create on site, whatever that looks like.

Their past relationship to Humble explains why they now procure their coffee beans through it. The fact that Humble roasts on an emissions-free Bellwether unit fits Misty Mountain’s eco-conscious ethos.

They’re a plastic-free outfit aiming to operate zero waste, utilizing mason jars for to-go drinks, which require a $1 deposit. Bring it back and you get your buck back or you can fill your next drink up. (Needless to say they’ll fill your travel mug up happily too.) When you earn points you can either get future free drinks or take a plant propagation with you. (A little clipping rooted in water for planting at home.) Cute!

Misty Mountain’s drinks are fun, still rooted in craft coffee foundations but leaning into the witchy theme with a list of “potions” (not coffee based) alongside the espresso classics. Those have ingredients like functional mushrooms, spirulina, and edible glitter. While you can get a cortado or cappuccino — with no upcharge for oat milk and only a 50-cent fee for almond or hemp milk plus house made syrups — you might instead want to try one of the custom speciality lattes.

The Cauldron has black cocoa, cinnamon, ginger, cayenne and sea salt. The Tree Spirit features cardamom and honey. I try the Forest Floor, spiked faintly with pine and rosemary essences.

You’ll also find an array of teas and tea lattes as well as “power ups” like L-theanine, maca and pea protein. All of those are written by hand on chalkboards at the register, so plan to take a moment to study it and hope there’s no line behind you so you don’t feel rushed. I could see this potentially creating a pain point when they’re busy, so something like a scan-able QR code or a few printed menus to place elsewhere might help. (Hey — paper’s recyclable at least.)

But if you aren’t in a rush on the way to work, and have a little time to linger, you might not mind the layout and ordering style. One might say in that situation that you’re seeing the forest for the trees. (See what I did there?)