BREWING FOR GOOD

Food Hall Pleases Palates and Gives Back

by Jeanne Davant

A sparkling, coiled, and tiered glass apparatus called a Yama tower tops the coffee station at Gift Horse Bar & Café at the Well, a downtown Colorado Springs food hall. Café Manager Joe Slivik loads ice water into the top chamber and lets it drip all day through fresh-ground coffee and spices. The finished product, after steaming the resulting concentrate with oat milk and house-made vanilla syrup, is a flavorful drink called spice coffee.

Slivik believes Gift Horse is the only shop in town that uses this Japanese method for cold-brewing coffee. The spice drink was quite popular on chilly days last winter and early spring, and Slivik is serving another unique seasonal concoction this summer.

On a recent afternoon, Slivik served foamy, custommade espresso drinks to a couple at one of the café’s tables and stopped to chat for a minute.

“We take a lot of pride in how we present our drinks,” he says. “Everything is very symmetrical, and we serve it with a little bachelor’s button. We’re trying to do all of these little things correctly so that you feel like you got great value out of your drink.”

Slivik acquired a master’s level education in the craft of coffee and tea brewing and service in his native Detroit and made a name for himself opening several cafes there. He was recruited by The Well’s operations consultant, Justin Anderson, through a mutual friend when the food hall opened its doors in late March 2022. With the café/bar as anchor, the food hall also hosts and supports vendors including SIVAR, serving Central American cuisine; Tossed Fresh & Organic, which offers healthy wraps, soups, and salads; and Formosa Bites, which brings traditional Taiwanese dishes to Colorado Springs. It also houses Shovel Ready, a culinary workforce program presented by the Community Cultural Collective at the Colorado Springs City Auditorium.

“What sets us apart from other food halls is that we’re backed by The Philanthropy Collective, one of the few nonprofits that funds for-profit businesses,” Anderson says. “After all our bills are paid, the profits go back to the philanthropies that invested in this venture and back into the community.”