Southern hospitality 🍽

Stix & Soul Kitchen infuses the Citadel Mall with authentic Mississippi flavors

Stix & Soul Kitchen owners Francesca and Lewis Cox. Photos by Matthew Schniper.

Lewis Cox tells me that he’s known his wife Francesca since around the time they were kindergarten aged. “We grew up thinking we were cousins,” he says, laughing. “She was partly raised by my mom as well.”

Their moms were best friends, he explains, and at age 15 he and Francesca started dating. Flash forward 25 years and they have seven kids together, plus a new restaurant endeavor that may as well count as an eighth child for the time being.

Stix & Soul Kitchen opened in early March at The Citadel mall (where Hooters resided up until last year). It’s the Coxes’ first foray into the professional food-service world, though Lewis assures me they more than know their ways around kitchens.

“I was that kid who wanted to be next to momma’s hip,” he says. “I was always in the kitchen with her wondering what she was cooking.” She’d learned to cook from her father, who was born in Jackson, Mississippi. It’s where Cox’s extended family still lives and where he ventures to every fall for family reunions. He’s one of four boys.

Even though he was born in Germany, as a military brat, he says he likes to let people know he learned to cook in the South. Authenticity is important to him. “Everyone in my kitchen here is from the South. I’m the executive chef, and they follow our routine.”

That routine has been shaped by home life, as Cox regularly cooked for his family, plus his kids’ friends and other family members. “People would pitch in with sodas and drinks; we didn’t ask for a dollar. I feed people here as if they were in my house. I put my heart into it. This is my gift from God, to feed the world.”

Catfish, cornbread, black-eyed peas, Nana’s Candied Yams, Lou’s Smack’n Cheese, MaMa’s Collards with turkey and smoke house ribs.

Before Cox realized this gift as a business, he was on a very different path. He alludes to a difficult period earlier on when “I was hanging around the wrong people, and I had to change my life.” His struggle included a few years of homelessness, he says. “I had to stop everything and do something right.”

He picked up a job at an asphalt company, and worked his way up to being a foreman. Years later when the business’ owner was retiring, he convinced Cox it was time for him to do his own thing. So he started renting gear at Bill’s Equipment & Supply and taking small jobs. That turned into a company called C&H Asphalt, which has been in operation for almost 15 years, now employing more than 20 people.

“Because of having to learn how to sell asphalt jobs, I can talk to anyone,” he says. “It’s why I’m a good salesman.” It’s why he’s not daunted at all to bite off selling his food. Touching tables is easy when you love talking to people and you’re a natural at it. Plus, that food has started to sell itself with good word-of-mouth in the community.

The opportunity at Stix & Soul started late last year when Cox started dabbling at some small bars in town to dip a toe in the marketplace. He did a popup stint at Woody’s Bar & Grill at Pikes Peak Avenue and Academy Boulevard for example, and says it significantly improved the business’ traffic and sales inside of a month.

During the football playoffs, he met his cousin to watch a Bronco’s game at Uno Mas off Platte Avenue. He met owner Richard Perea and pitched him on bringing his foodservice there. After listening, Perea told Cox his vision was bigger than the facilities could handle, but he’d just procured a spot at Citadel Mall that had a large kitchen. Perea was only planning to open a pool hall in the space, more as an event center not open regularly to the public. But perhaps it could use a dining component?

After seeing the space, Cox made an offer. Perea weighed it for several weeks, and ultimately decided to partner 50/50 with him to create Stix & Soul Kitchen. Francesca took on the GM role; their kids are part of the crew.

In the short couple months it’s been open, Stix & Soul has been promisingly busy. Sometime a line will back up to the doors, Cox says. Every service hasn’t been as smooth as he’d like, but he concedes they’re learning their way forward and earnestly listening to feedback.

“I’ve tightened the menu up,” he says, “adjusting seasonings, and backing off salt for the elders.” He wants his customers to feel like they’re walking into his home, not like they’re at a restaurant. It’s a cliché, but true for him.

“Food tastes better when you feel you’re at home,” he says. “If you feel like you’re at a McDonald’s it’s just not going to taste as good. This is like a big family reunion here. Our atmosphere is high-energy. I’m gonna greet you like you’re my auntie or my grandma. I accept people like they’re family.”

He returns to a humble, almost sheepish tone, saying “if anything’s wrong with your food, come tell me and I’ll make it again. I want you to feel like you’re at a barbecue at your cousin’s, and he won’t hesitate to remake your chicken on the grill.”

It’s clear Cox is a people pleaser, finding success by embracing the true spirit of Southern hospitality. He got that from his mom, who got it from her dad, and he’s passing it along to his children here. “They weren’t born in Mississippi, but it’s in their genes,” he says.

The family’s warmth has resonated with various segments of the community, but with the Black community in particular. I think I’m the only white dude at the eatery during a late lunch rush and I love that, feeling transported back home to Alabama where I grew up. Colorado Springs’s population is only around 6-percent Black, so to get out of the Caucasian bubble, you typically have to venture mindfully to Black-owned businesses anchored in specific neighborhoods, mostly on the Southeast side,

Lewis Cox with Chef Brother Luck, a friend through Luck’s wife’s housing-related work. Luck took me to lunch and introduced me.

I chat with Cox about it and he says “I didn’t think it would be like this. This demographic speaks volumes. We’ve been strongly embraced by the Black community, and not just from here. I’ve had people drive from Denver, Longmont, Fort Collins.” Then there’s the people living here that, like me, came from the South. “I found a whole niche of people from Georgia and all over,” he says, adding that there’s also support from the Hispanic and white community. Soul food speaks to everybody.

He pauses a beat, then shouts-out the other Southern-food businesses in town, saying he’s not in this to compete. There’s Club Tilt & Grill on Astrozon Boulevard and Sabrina’s Soul Food Kitchen not far from there, on South Academy Boulevard. “And I love Luchals — her energy and her food,” he says, acknowledging the Cajun departure from his strictly Southern menu.

Notice I’ve talked around food with this writeup, painting you a picture of the people and the place mostly instead. It’s not because our meal (pictured above, if you need to scroll back) wasn’t good. It was great. Chef Brother Luck and I knocked out the crunchy catfish (expertly seasoned and fried); the tangy ribs (meat easily releasing from bone with a good chew); crispy chicken gizzards dipped in hot sauce; juicy fried green tomatoes; and the terrific sides: Lou’s Smack’n Cheese, Nana’s Candied Yams, MaMa’s Collards with turkey, black-eyed peas with turkey, and cornbread with a caramelized sugar top that makes it as dessert-y as the sappy yams.

There’s a wide array of dishes to go back and try, ranging from wings, pork chops, brisket and a Salisbury steak plate. Now that you have a sense of the vibe, go get lost in some soul food and get your fingers sticky on something. Beer and cocktails will be coming soon (likely within a couple weeks of you reading this).

And Cox, being the smart guy that he is — knowing how people in this town behave, and just the right thing to say to them — wraps up by telling me: “We have the biggest parking lot in the Springs.”

Spoken like a true asphalt salesman.