Three miles apart, two very different bets on Colorado Springs dining are playing out in real time this August. One is a professionally developed restaurant row backed by an established local hospitality group. The other is a free city-run passport app that asks you to eat a hot dog and drink a martini at ten different addresses downtown. Right now, the passport is winning.
That is not a knock on ambition. It is a fact worth sitting with if you live here and want to know where the city's food energy actually is, not where the press releases say it should be.
The Restaurant Row That's Already Down Two Concepts
Back in 2022, Five Times Hospitality Group opened a food and entertainment complex at 1895 Democracy Point in north Colorado Springs, backed by partner Chuck Schafer, who also owns the long-running Prime 25 steakhouse. The plan was four distinct concepts under one roof: Manhattan Room Tapas Kitchen, Longboard Tacos, Pause Ultra Lounge & Sushi, and Cansano Italian Steakhouse, an homage to the founder's grandfather's hometown in the Abruzzo region.
Four years later, here is where that lineup actually stands.
| Original concept (2022) | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|
| Manhattan Room Tapas Kitchen | Closed. Same address and phone number now belong to Prime 25 North |
| Longboard Tacos | Closed |
| Cansano Italian Steakhouse | Open, under Executive Chef Pete Moreno |
| Pause Ultra Lounge & Sushi | Open, with a rooftop deck and fire pits |
| New arrivals since 2022 | Nana's Dim Sum & Dumplings (Suite 102) and Night Ramen |
Half the original lineup is gone. And the replacement for one of the closed spots is telling. The phone number that used to ring Manhattan Room Tapas Kitchen now connects to Prime 25 North, the same Schafer brand that anchors the whole development. When one of his own new concepts didn't work, the fix wasn't a fresh idea. It was his oldest, most established one, moved into the vacancy.
That is not a failure story so much as a reminder that a bigger investment does not automatically buy loyalty. A restaurant row can have backing, buildout, and a signature pasta room, and still lose two of its four bets within a handful of years.
Meanwhile, Downtown Is Filling Tables With A Free App
Compare that to what is happening right now, this week, at restaurants that have been open a decade or longer with no dedicated marketing department behind them.
Downtown Colorado Springs is in the middle of its Weenies & 'Tinis passport, running August 14 through August 30. Ten downtown restaurants, including longtime favorites Red Gravy and The Brit Pub, are each serving a chef-designed gourmet hot dog paired with a signature martini. Download the free digital passport, visit a participating restaurant, order the pairing, and earn points toward gift cards and prizes. After the event wraps, locals vote for their favorite pairing to crown a "Top Dog."
It sounds like a gimmick until you look at what it actually did last year. The 2025 Weenies & 'Tinis passport was downloaded 792 times, and 591 of those downloads turned into an actual restaurant visit, generating more than $23,000 in spending across the two-week window. This spring's follow-up event, Tacos & Tequila, drew a smaller crowd, 455 downloads and 339 visits, and produced roughly $13,000 in revenue. The conversion rate held steady both times, right around 75 percent of everyone who downloaded the passport actually used it. The program does not need a bigger restaurant list to work. It needs more people to hear about it.
Kelsee Swenn, marketing manager for the Downtown Partnership, has been direct about why the events land in August specifically: "To help drive traffic to restaurants during what's traditionally a slower time of year for them." That is the whole strategy. Downtown does not need new buildings to compete with a shiny development three miles north. It needs a reason for people who already live here to walk into a restaurant they pass every week and never enter.
Eric Brenner, who has owned Red Gravy for more than a decade, said the passport keeps bringing in people who had "heard about your place" for years but never actually stopped in. That is the entire value of the program in one sentence. It is not attracting tourists. It is closing the gap between locals who mean to try somewhere new and locals who actually do.
What This Actually Tells You About Eating Out Here Right Now
If you live in Colorado Springs and only pay attention to what opens, you will keep missing the more useful story: what survives, and why. A four-concept restaurant complex with real capital behind it has already turned over half its lineup. A cluster of decade-old independents with no comparable marketing budget just posted a five-figure revenue bump in a normally slow month, using an app that costs nothing to download.
That does not mean the north side complex is doomed or that downtown is immune to closures. It means the mechanism that keeps a restaurant full in this city right now has less to do with square footage or backing and more to do with giving people a specific, time-limited reason to show up. Cansano and Pause Ultra Lounge are still standing at 1895 Democracy Point because they built their own following. Prime 25 North is testing whether an established downtown name can do the same thing in a suite that already burned through one concept.
How To Use The Passport Before It's Gone
The Weenies & 'Tinis window closes August 30, which gives you less than a week from today. If you want in:
- Download the free digital passport through the Downtown Partnership's website
- Visit any of the ten participating restaurants, including Red Gravy and The Brit Pub
- Order the featured hot dog and martini pairing to earn points
- Redeem points for gift cards and prizes before the event ends
- Vote for your favorite pairing once voting opens for "Top Dog"
Past passports have also built in options for people who skip meat, so it is worth asking at each stop rather than assuming the menu is fixed.
What Comes Next
Once the passport wraps, the next reason to be downtown or anywhere with a clear view of the sky arrives fast. The Colorado Springs Labor Day Lift Off returns September 5 through 7, and it is the largest hot air balloon festival in the state. It is a good bookend to the same idea running through this whole month: the things that make a neighborhood feel alive here are rarely about what just got built. They are about what people already living here choose to show up for, year after year.
If you are watching how Colorado Springs neighborhoods evolve, not just which restaurants open but which ones actually last, that same instinct applies to real estate here too. Jennifer Koslowsky at JenSellsHomesCO has spent 25 years paying attention to which parts of this market have staying power and which are still figuring it out. If you want a local read on where things stand, explore the Colorado Springs neighborhood guide or reach out directly. It costs nothing to ask, and it might save you from betting on the wrong concept.
