Dine & Dash: Coffee and two scoops of ice cream 🍽
Ruby's Brew Bus takes Veteran Coffee Roasters' mission on the road; Denver's Heaven Artisan Creamery excels with low-sugar tropical flavors; Colorado City Creamery offers nostalgia by the cone
Ruby’s Brew Bus
Ruby’s Brew Bus just hit the road a few months ago as a mobile coffee trailer, hand-painted by co-owner Merri Newhart and named in tribute to her grandmother.
Merri learned to roast in 2012 while out on the East Coast, trained by Veteran Coffee Roasters founder Robert Mastin. That’s who she still procures beans from today, with a dollar for every retail pound sold going back as a donation to veterans organizations. You can buy bags, including mini sampler six packs to find your favorite flavor, direct off the truck at events. (And you can order online, with free delivery included.)
Merri taught her husband Dale how to roast, so that’s his primary duty these days, in addition to grinding, bagging and delivering beans. Her daughter Kenzie works with her on the truck at events, with Merri operating the espresso machine as the chief barista.
I order the Salty Dog, which is a salted caramel latte made with Veteran Coffee Roasters’ Milano Espresso Blend. It’s a Northern-Italian-style dark roast composed of Sumatran and Colombian beans, with medium-roasted Costa Rican added in “for sweetness” to counter the bolder, chocolatey, roastier notes. It stands up plenty to oat milk and my requested half-sweet serving of the salted caramel.
I hop aboard the bus briefly to further interview Merri during an event I catch them at. She tells me a little more backstory that dates this business in some form back to 2017 despite the bus being so new to the streets.
They’d started roasting and selling Veteran Coffee Roasters beans in a space downtown and briefly operated a kiosk inside Archery School of the Rockies. Construction was underway on another spot inside some office space in January 2020 … and well, you can probably guess where the story goes from there. Yep — COVID.
Merri and Dale lost their roaster as part of that whole ordeal, but received a lifeline from fellow roaster Ryan Wanner at Golden Pine Coffee Roasters in Black Forest. He invited them to roast on his equipment “and never charged a dime” recounts Merri. Today, they continue to roast on Ernesto (Wanner’s roaster’s name, I have learned in the process of fact-checking) and now pay a “nominal fee” for storage space.
If you want to help support veterans organizations by buying beans through Merri and Dale text “I need coffee” to 719-301-9761 or visit their Veteran Coffee Roasters Colorado Springs Facebook page. She mentions that local nonprofits can create fundraisers of their own by purchasing batches of beans wholesale, even creating custom labels, and reselling them at a small retail markup themselves. So ultimately, Ruby the Brew Bus aims to be a vehicle for positive change.
Heaven Artisan Creamery
We were recently in Denver for some activities and made an effort to stop by one of Heaven’s seven metro-area locations that span from Boulder to Lakewood and Arvada.
I hadn’t had their ice creams before, but was immediately drawn in when learning they’re made to be as healthy as possible. They claim to use “50 percent less sugar than traditional ice cream.” And they don’t use artificial additives, preservatives or refined sugars. Instead, they sweeten their ice creams, gelatos (including vegan gelato) and sorbet with either agave, monk fruit, stevia, honey or cane sugar.
Oh, and they also market with more than 500 flavors developed and in rotation. So maybe don’t expect to find what I’m writing about when you go, as it sounds like things swap-up frequently.
We figured the best way to try as many flavors as possible was with a couple of ice cream flights, which are $13.75 and come with a choice of five flavors plus a tuile, whipped cream dollop and chocolate sauce — that can be drizzled on top or set on the side in a ramekin.
We mix-and-matched between regular ice creams, gelatos and vegan gelatos (which are made with coconut and oat milks in their base). And we tried the following flavors: coffee, ube, avocado, pineapple-lemongrass, matcha-blueberry-lavender, tiramisu, mint chocolate, coconut-pineapple, blackberry-orchid and raspberry dark chocolate.
Between them, textures were pretty uniform and if you aren’t paying close attention you won’t notice what’s what by way of the different bases. The flavors are what are critical. I like mine without the chocolate sauce for the most part (so I’m glad I’m the one who elected to put it on the side); for what it’s worth it hardens and creates a shell over scoops upon contact, and some folks will love that texture contrast. So long as we’re in Heaven, let me say thank God that the sauce doesn’t taste like commercial Hershey’s bullshit but instead something rich, clean and clearly housemade by the same people who care about putting less sugar in ice cream.
Anyway, a couple flavors leave us wanting more, including the ube, which has a pretty purple color but kinda “taste like nothing” as I wrote down in my notes on my phone. The mint chocolate, raspberry dark chocolate and tiramisu are good but notably less punchy than expected, which is to say I think that’s where the reduced sugar shows up most. The coffee flavor has that cappuccino ice cream vibe that’s an easy winner.
Where things really get interesting, and Heaven shines its light down on us the most, is with its tropical flavors. This likely speaks to Heaven’s earliest roots as a prior business in the Latino community.
The blackberry-orchid is highly floral and just wonderful, while lavender is properly balanced with the bitter matcha element and sweet blueberry element in that fun tri-flavor vegan ice cream. The avocado is subtle, and a flavor you’ll have a hard time describing to someone as it’s not very avocado-y, but just enough so to invoke the raw fruit along with the color cue.
Whereas coconut-pineapple predictably tastes like a piña colada, it does so in the desired way, which is not to taste like suntan lotion smells — a testament to the natural ingredients versus artificial flavorings. My single favorite flavor of the day, though, is the pineapple-lemongrass, which transports my palate more into a Thai or Indian realm. I love the herbal lacing under the fresh pineapple zing; and it tastes so refreshing on what is a hella hot day out.
Ultimately, in feeling like we need to rank Heaven compared to where else we’d go for ice cream when we’re in Denver — and you know there’s a bunch of great options — we say come here if you care about a healthier option and are willing to trade the reduced sugar for a little reduced wow factor at turns. Still, there’s some standout bites (or licks, or whatever).
But as we’re departing Heaven and walking back to our car in Five Points, we agree that our go-to remains Van Leeuwen Ice Cream (on Larimer Square or Platte Street). Maybe you’ve tried their wacky flavors found in grocery stores, like dill pickle and Kraft mac n’ cheese. But in-store they kill it with absolutely every flavor, including the vegan options.
Colorado City Creamery
While legacy ice cream spot Josh & John’s just celebrated its 40th anniversary, Colorado City Creamery will turn 47 come August of this year, occupying the cute little European chalet-looking building with eye-catching yellow trim at 26th Street and Colorado Avenue in the heart of Old Colorado City.
The shop has a bygone era, nostalgic feel to it, with a notably low ceiling inside; red, white and blue quilt pattern wallpaper; and what I believe to be the town’s only Sundae Bar — an island of garnishes in the dining room where you can dress up your own sundae as you would garnish tacos at a salsa bar.
While we await our turn to order, we peruse dated news clippings on the wall, some of which detail the shop’s commitment to fresh-made ice cream from a simple cream, sugar and egg base. I haven’t been by in many years, though we used to serve their ice cream at Sencha when I worked there with Chef Brent Beavers a couple decades ago, so I was once well acquainted.
In revisiting it now, by way of a raspberry chip flavor and the Pikes Peak Trail (vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cups and fudge swirl), I find it to be a pretty mild ice cream style, leading with the rich base that’s less sweet than most commercial ice creams on its own, allowing the natural-tasting flavors to speak up. Though the adjunct ingredients do the most talking; so chocolate and peanut butter in these cases. They’re perfectly good, but don’t really blow my skirt up in a way that makes then my go-to unless I’m already in the neighborhood.
Trying to place Colorado City Creamery in context in our present marketplace, they just feel more classic like the BJ’s Velvet Freez (dating back to 1954) and Drive-In Tasty Freeze options (established in 1955), despite those being soft-serve style. Again: playing off nostalgia and multi-generation tradition.
That’s in contrast to more modern-feeling spots like Josh & John’s and Lolley’s and Rizuto’s and especially Frozen Gold. There’s so many options now when you want some of the good, cold, sweet stuff. I could further name drop Caffeinated Cow and Ice Guys and Starving as places sourcing quality ice creams versus making them in-house, plus Stellina who does make authentic gelato on-site.
I guess part of the point I’m making is C. Springs has grown a lot in the nearly five decades since Colorado City Creamery’s inception. It’s awesome we can go corner to corner in the city and never be too far from a good ice cream spot.
While options now abound, this legacy spot has held its own and nurtured a following that surpasses tourist-season traffic. It’s cute, sincere and completely serviceable on a hot summer evening. Oh, and they serve Vienna Beef hot dogs too, should you want a Chicago- or New York-style meat tube prior to your ice cream licking.