There was a lot happening on the Colorado Springs dining scene when I first moved here in the mid-‘90s. Coffee culture was sweeping the nation, and downtown Kafeo provided a cozy nook for a latte downtown before Starbucks moved into the neighborhood. Craft beer was beginning its ascendency too, with upstarts Phantom Canyon and Bristol Brewing opening their doors. Long-time family-owned restaurants were common — some of which are now the oldest restaurants in the Springs. There were some great local restaurants opening, such as the Blue Star and the Mona Lisa. And the city’s foodscape was booming with its population, but mostly with national chains like Macaroni Grill and Boston Market.
Could you call Colorado Springs a foodie city? Hardly.
In fact, it was only a few years later that Colorado Springs was featured as an emblem of the American growth of fast food — and its fast food mentality — in the 2001 best-selling book Fast Food Nation.
The Springs’ restaurant scene has come a long way since then. The last decade has brought another restaurant boom, again as the city’s population has ballooned. A big share of that growth has included In-N-Outs, Whataburgers, Raising Cane’s and other fast food chains, but there has also been a renaissance of local restaurants. Even with the challenges that have persisted after the COVID-19 pandemic, many independent restaurants continue to open, raising the variety and quality of restaurants in Colorado Springs. It has even made it difficult to narrow down our annual 30 Best Restaurants in Colorado Springs list.
So is Colorado Springs a foodie city now?
In WalletHub’s recently released 2024 Best Foodie Cities in America, the Springs ranked 76th out of 180 of the largest U.S. cities — solidly in the middle. The personal finance website compared 28 key metrics, ranging from the accessibility of high-quality restaurants and the number of food festivals per capita to the cost of groceries and affordability. Its goal was to identify the cities where people can experience the best flavors without breaking the bank.
The good news for Colorado Springs foodies is that COS ranked higher for its restaurant quality and diversity — in the top one-third of American cities. When looking at quality scores alone, Colorado Springs ranked one spot behind Dallas and one spot ahead of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The bad news for diners is that the Springs ranked lower for dining affordability. By those monetary measures alone, Colorado Springs lands two spots below Denver and only three spots above Chicago — both significantly larger cities.
“[Colorado Springs’] strongest showing was 55th in diversity, accessibility, and quality, which indicates that the city offers a wide variety of dining options, including local flavors and food trucks,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo told us. “However, affordability remains a challenge, as the city ranked 123rd in that category. This reflects the city’s relatively higher costs for food-related expenses compared to other cities.”
Prices in the Springs showed up on the high end of another recent WalletHub report. This September, Colorado Springs ranked 67th in WalletHub’s Best Coffee Cities in America 2024. Part of that ranking included its score of 98th out of 100 for the average price of a cappuccino. According to WalletHub’s data, a cappuccino in the Springs averages nearly double the cost of one in Durham, North Carolina, and nearby Aurora, Colorado, which ranked No. 1 and 2 for the lowest average price of a cappuccino.
“Despite its overall middle-of-the-pack ranking, Colorado Springs stands out for its accessibility to unique culinary experiences, which makes it a worthy food destination in Colorado,” Lupo says. “However, the city’s higher cost of living likely contributes to its low affordability ranking. This is one area where there’s room for improvement to make the foodie culture more accessible to residents and visitors alike.”
What are the best foodie cities in America? Miami, San Francisco and Orlando took the top three honors, respectively, in WalletHub’s report. You can see the full list and methodology here.
Looking through the list, we would like to see the Springs rank higher than some of the other cities above it. For example, both No. 52 Springfield, Missouri, and No. 54 Bakersfield, California trail the Springs in quality but outrank it overall thanks to better affordability. But there’s no plausible argument that Colorado Springs has a better food scene than No. 9 Denver, No. 36 New Orleans or No. 51 Nashville (another notable foodie city pulled down by its high costs).
To be fair to restaurant owners, Colorado is an expensive state to run a restaurant, and the well documented challenges of inflationary food and labor costs have been especially difficult to outrun over the past several years. The Colorado Restaurant Association reported in 2023 that food prices increased more than 11% in 2022, the highest increase in more than four decades. The organization also says that only about 3 cents from every dollar spent at a Colorado restaurant remains after operators pay for labor, overhead and food.
What about that overabundance of chain restaurants?
According to data from the Washington Post, Colorado Springs had a 37% share of major chain restaurants in 2022, a small improvement from 2021. By comparison, the chainiest city in the U.S. was Anniston-Oxford, Alabama, with 56.9%. The city with the fewest chain restaurants was Ocean City, New Jersey, with 7.9%, the only city with a single-digit rate. The Denver-Aurora-Lakewood metro area had 33.8%.
There’s no doubt that this city has a lot of fast food and other chain restaurants, but that chain rate is middle of the pack nationally too. While we don’t have a comparative percentage from Colorado Springs’ infamous Fast Food Nation days, we’d venture to say the latest numbers show an improvement in the balance of chains and independent restaurants.
We will confidently say the local food scene continues to get better as it grows. Is there room for more improvement? Definitely. Will it ever be equal to neighboring Denver or the biggest U.S. cities and top food scenes? Realistically, probably not overall, unless the Springs ever grows to that size. But that’s not to say there aren’t or won’t be restaurants or pockets of the food scene that are just as good as those bigger markets. And when those restaurants come through with that high level, it’s up to diners to show up and vote with their dollars about the type and quality of food, restaurant and dining experience they want.
So maybe the most productive question to ask is: Is the food scene generally moving in the right direction? We say yes.
As WalletHub’s report said: “Foodies enjoy discovering new and unique flavors wherever they can find them, including in their own kitchens and less prominent establishments like street food trucks. For these culinary enthusiasts, the experience of eating is elevated to a hobby or even a lifestyle.”
Colorado Springs has plenty of gems for foodies to find their favorites, and the continually increasing variety can keep them exploring for a long time. Each new restaurant, food truck, food hall, brewery or bakery that continues to open is an opportunity and a potential step forward for an emerging food scene. Sometimes those are big steps, sometimes small. But it’s a pretty good place to be with room to grow.
