A central bakery
Switchback Coffee Roasters-born Provision prepares to launch local-focused breads and pastries downtown + more food & drink news
Provision Bread & Bakery will soon open downtown, in the former Machine Shop coworking space at 4 S. Wahsatch Ave., just across the parking lot from Folklore. Though the business is an entirely new concept, the faces behind it are familiar from our existing food/drink scene: Brandon DelGrosso owns 12-year-old Switchback Coffee Roasters’ two locations as well as Lakeside Dawgs & Cones at Prospect Lake; and Trista Heileman has been Switchback’s head baker since it launched its Hillside-neighborhood Helen Hunt Campus Cafe in mid 2020.
Heileman’s gaining a co-owner title at Provision, where she’ll be in charge of a significantly-sized baking operation (they earned a retail incentive grant from Downtown Partnership) that’s targeting wholesale customers in addition to retail patrons. She will house-mill organic, unprocessed whole grains and avoid preservatives or anything unnatural, placing a huge emphasis on sourcing products from growers across the region and state. (More on that below.)
Product offerings will come on the menu as the operation gets open and adjusted to its new ovens and equipment, but will eventually include: naturally leavened bread loaf varieties, brioche buns, English muffins, bagels, croissants, scones, Danishes, muffins, cookies, hand pies and limited sandwiches. They will also do special offerings such as hotdog buns around 4th of July, which they’ll otherwise be making to supply Lakeside Dawgs.
There are no plans for pizzas, as they feel downtown’s already well saturated with fine offerings. And DelGrosso will only serve Switchback’s drip coffees and some teas, not espresso drinks. That’s partly again for existing area coffee shop density, but also for Provision’s quick-service model. “This isn’t like Switchback,” he says, “where it’s designed for people to sit” or maybe remote-work over a latte. “It’s going to be more grab-and-go, not as much of a community gathering space.” As the majority of the space will be devoted to the bakery, prep areas and cold storage, the front retail area and mini mercantile will have quite limited seating, although warm months will invite some patio seating as well.
Now to the bit about the local-food emphasis. As in the coffee world where roasteries make direct-trade relationships, DelGrosso and Heileman prefer to truly know their farmers and ranchers, “which is a lot easier” jokes DelGrosso, “because it’s more of a 100-mile radius” versus coffee-growing regions internationally. The fact is they’ve already been working with a number of regional producers at Switchback.
For example, their ham, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich currently includes Larga Vista ham and green chiles, Sunshine Green’s Farm’s microgreens, Yoder Family Farms eggs and Sawatch Artisan Foods’ white cheddar cheese. That’s why it commands a $10.50 price tag, because buying local and high-quality products means a higher food cost for Switchback too. As we said in State of Plate, Ep. 5, “Food Fight” we must support small farms and ranchers if we want to keep them alive, and vote with our dollars for the more sustainable and holistic food models we want to see.
DelGrosso tells me the story that when he sought to hire Heileman at his Hillside cafe, after she’d spent a year working for their mutual friend David McInnis at industry-leading Nightingale Bread when it first opened, her stipulation was only if they worked with local producers. The two had perfect culture fit on the matter. During the pandemic, he notes, they ran a local-good pop-up grocery store out of Switchback to meet the nearby neighborhood’s needs, while “we watched a lot of farm friends go out of business… we built a relationship with Tap Root Cooperative back then.”
Provision will become a distribution hub for Hunt or Gather buying club, and it’s intentionally building out extra refrigerator and freezer space to assist with local CSA’s and all the producers they intend to work with. They aim to be able to sell those goods to other restaurants in the area, making it easy for them too to connect to superior local goods.
Here are some of the other producers they’ll source from that by-now should be familiar to Springs folk: New Roots Farm, Frost Farms, Nola Naturals Farms, Jones Farms Organics, Austin Family Farm, High Altitude Rhubarb and Rocky Draw Farms. (Fun fact: Rocky Draw uses horses instead of tractors, saying on their website: “We believe that using horses is more sustainable and better for the soil than using tractors, and let's face it, it's a lot more fun!”)
As for the name Provision, DelGrosso says it holds multiple meanings to him and Heileman. One is basically the literal translation for being a stock/supply of food, with downtown residents in mind, a “provision for people in the city,” who otherwise lack a nearby bakery. Another is being that storehouse for the growers and ranchers, a provision for them, too, symbolizing the connection to the land. There’s also an association of being “nutrient-rich and good for you” as well as a spiritual component, he says, “of believing God is our provision, and honoring him in everything we do.”
Follow Provision’s progress toward opening on their social media pages, and tentatively expect a May opening for wholesale clients and June opening for retail.
El Chapin adds a burger brand
El Chapin, the epic taco cart located outside Ranch Foods Direct’s market at 1228 E. Fillmore St., just opened their Chapin Burgers and Shakes truck, adjacent to its existing operation. I spoke with RFD owner Mike Callicrate about it during a recent catch-up, and he explained that RFD’s providing the beef (just as they provide meats for El Chapin’s tacos), but the new trailer at the market’s rear is owned by Luis Guerra and his wife Paola.
They’re keeping it simple with fairly basic burgers and cheeseburgers — not a giant list of loaded burger constructs — and offering hand-cut fries cooked in RFD’s beef tallow (the way McDonald’s use to make theirs before making bad decisions, not that I’ve eaten fast food since I was a kid). Buns are coming from RFD partner The Sourdough Boulangerie, and shakes are made with Anne & Mann’s Homemade Ice Cream.
While on the topic of Ranch Foods Direct, they recently opened a new, full-service, fresh butcher counter at their 4635 Town Center Drive location, for “anything you want,” says Callicrate. And they’ve introduced a new retail product: a Goat Patch Brewing Co. pork beer bratwurst made with the brewery’s It Takes a Tribe red ale.
Side Dish with Schniper gets syndicated
If you have been following the happenings at Sixty35Media that lead to the creation of this Substack, you’ll know that the Colorado Springs Indy returned to newsstands this week as the organization struggles to regain its footing.
If you picked up a copy of the paper (or read online), you’ll also notice that they’ve partly restored the food section, for which I was the section editor for the past decade-plus. The Indy will now be publishing a portion of Side Dish with Schniper weekly, mainly a condensed version of this free, weekly newsletter. They will not be publishing my reviews (currently behind a paywall here, too) at this time — as, transparently, the funds aren’t yet in place to compensate for meal costs and my copy.
I want to firstly thank the Indy for continuing to value our relationship, my role in the community as a food journalist and the need for covering the Springs’ food and drink scene attentively. I’m glad to still appear in print in the publication where I got my start in journalism as a freelancer back in 2004. I continue to wish them the best as they work hard to regain community trust and confidence and rebuild a newspaper that I believe is vital to this town. I sincerely hope Side Dish’s presence will help.
Secondly, I feel the need to detail what this syndication is and isn’t as it relates to Side Dish with Schniper. What it isn’t is me being restored to employment at the company, where I had healthcare benefits in addition to a regular paycheck. I’m now being compensated for syndication of my Substack at a monthly freelance rate that will likely equate annually to around one-fifth my prior, part-time salary. (That’s not them being predatory; that’s me owning my own content, publishing it first and accepting what I’d call fair industry standard for reprint rights.)
That means that it is a second slice of pie, in addition to the outstanding subscriber support I’ve received over the last few weeks since launching; my first slice. I now have two pie slices in the pan to financially support this work, but I will need to find more slices via sponsors and underwriters in the coming months to make this endeavor long-term sustainable for me as a continued career. So, sticking with the metaphor, I still need to make a whole pie. There’s time; I’m confident and excited.
While I stay hard at work producing this content, I’m also devoting time to seek out these potential sponsors and underwriters. I’m wearing lots of hats at the moment, benefiting from many friends’ and loved ones’ generosity of time, advice-giving and expertise-lending. I want to keep you in the loop on my progress — I just passed the 800 mark on subscribers this morning, wow! — and be transparent with you at every step of this Substack’s development. It’s not an empty expression for me to reiterate that we’re in this together to create the dedicated food and drink coverage that our blossoming industry deserves.
If I hang up my hat, I leave you to the influencers, and good luck sorting paid placements from real reviews amidst the endless scroll of food-porn videos and Insta stories, where everything’s always amazing and “the best.” Sorry for the tone, but that’s not how we roll at Side Dish with Schniper.
So to recap: 1) Syndication sweet! 2) Go Indy! 3) Thank you subscribers! 4) Tell a friend or 10 about this newsletter so we can continue to grow it into the future!
Plant power
I’m overjoyed to announce Side Dish with Schniper’s next partnership: with area vegan expert and superstar JL Fields. Among her many titles, she’s a talented and prolific author, chef, dietary and nutrition coach, yoga teacher and plant-based industry consultant. She’s also a personal friend, who’s written for me on-and-off over the years when I was Food & Drink Editor at the Indy.
We first met in 2013, when she arrived in the Springs. I commissioned her for a cover story: Animal Subtraction: “One outsider’s intrepid move into dining plant-based in the Pikes Peak region.” JL has been writing for the Indy monthly in the past couple years — since giving the Gazette the finger back in early 2021, after writing for them too. This past March, she too was laid off in a freelance capacity from the newspaper.
Well, I don’t want to lose her from my team, so I’m thrilled JL has agreed to come aboard here to continue sharing her passion for a holistic, plant-based lifestyle. We anticipate her writing on vegan topics and offering mini reviews once a month at this time, with her first work to appear at April’s end. Back to my prior blurb about funding: If you’re an existing fan of JL and want to help get her paid, share the word. We’d also love to find a specific vegan sponsor (or 10) to underwrite the plant-based print and make sure that segment of our community is well represented.
Food news in brief
• Cowboy Star just released its new spring menu. I spoke with a front-house employee briefly and asked what items they’re excited about. They said the Pacific halibut entrée with black truffles and lemon oil over spring pea risotto. And the new foie gras starter presentation, which hosts a a sauternes gelée, blackberry and rhubarb. Plus, the scallops, which have a fresh setup that I’m copying here from the menu: “shrimp and mussel velouté, bacon and chive roasted butternut squash, Brussels sprouts and leeks, finished with pomme dauphine.”
• Food Trucks Against Homelessness and Westside Cares are seeking food trucks interested in partnering to provide “meals, resources, and human connection to our houseless community.” They’re also accepting a wide variety of other donations, listed here. You can see a (heartwarming) long list of trucks that have thus far signed up to feed meals on Mondays. “We hope that you would consider using one of them for your next event in appreciation for their generosity to feed our neighbors,” says FTAH.
• Early notice: Taste of Tri-Lakes Cares 2023 will take place from 5:30 to 8 p.m., Tuesday, May 9 at Boot Barn Hall at Bourbon Brothers. About the event: “Modeled after the Food Network’s television show Chopped, chefs from local restaurants are invited to participate. They receive a basket of food items typically found in the Tri-Lakes Cares food pantry or Help Yourself Market and are challenged to use these ingredients (and any additions they may choose to add) to create a single dish for sampling at the event. The goal is to showcase how ordinary items from the food pantry can be transformed into tasty and unusual dishes.”
• Even earlier notice: Taste of Pikes Peak returns after its pandemic hiatus on July 27, with an exciting new venue. The event, put on by the Pikes Peak Chapter of the Colorado Restaurant Association, won’t be taking place in its typical Broadmoor Hall location, but instead it’s taking it to the streets with an outdoor event in downtown Colorado Springs. Vendors will line a closed-to-traffic South Sierra Madre Street and much merriment will be had. Great, but why am I telling you this now? Because until June 1 you can catch early-bird ticket rates, which include an offer for a discounted $15 ticket to partnering organization the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum. CRA organizers are seeking more restaurant participants to sign up, and the event benefits Colorado ProStart. Related to that, awesome news that high school students from District 11 Odyssey ECCO School won a gold medal at the The Colorado ProStart® Student Invitational state-level competition in mid March. That means, come May, they will travel to Washington, D.C. for the National ProStart® Student Invitational to represent Colorado and compete for scholarship money.
Parting shot
Many of you enjoyed the story about my black duck eggs in my March 25 newsletter. So I figure there’s probably appetite for more duck coverage in Side Dish. At least as far as some random snapshots of my back yard at a given time, and what the girls are up to. Well, this week I offer you a photo I’m titling Two Naughty Ducks in the Compost. Please note I’ve shown great restraint in not using any puns, but if you’re inspired to share one of your own as a caption, based on the image, feel free to comment below. (Well, I guess I should note that their names are Action Quackson and Buffy the EggSlayer. You’re welcome.)
Hey! Any clue how they get truffles to Colorado? Maybe they are jarred with oil?