Drive into town on Highway 24 and the old Midland train depot still sits where it always has, a low brick building that used to mark the edge of downtown. This year, for the first time, something rises up behind it. Two stories of glass, angled toward Pikes Peak, visible from the road before you even reach Center Street. That building is Tava House, and its arrival this spring was the biggest piece of the fastest run of restaurant openings Woodland Park has seen in years.
Three genuinely different kitchens opened here in 2026: a fourth location of a familiar taco brand in January, a $9 million steakhouse-and-taproom complex in May, and a food-truck-turned-storefront in July. None of them compete with each other for the same table, and taken together they cover the widest stretch of restaurant openings Woodland Park has seen in one year. Each one answers a different question about whether Woodland Park wants to eat differently than it used to, and the most interesting answer came from the person who covers this market for a living, who wasn't sure the town could support the biggest bet of the three.
A Six-Acre Bet on Center Street
Tava House sits at 120 S. Center Street on land that CEO Derek Waggoner had been circling for six years before the restaurant idea stuck. The project pulled together $6.9 million in joint financing from Native American Bank and Park State Bank & Trust, split roughly $3.8 million and $3.1 million, and investor money brought the total closer to $9 million across five backers. That kind of capital doesn't usually land in a town of Woodland Park's size for a single restaurant.
What it bought is really three businesses under one roof. The ground floor holds Tava Taphouse, a fifty-draft beer hall with room for more than forty guests inside and another fifty on the patio. Upstairs is Firebrand Chophouse, a fine dining room that seats 60 to 65 guests around a solid-walnut community table and a see-through fireplace, with kitchen windows that face the street so people driving past at night can watch chefs working in white coats. The River Room handles weddings and banquets, and had a summer of bookings on the calendar before the doors even opened.
Chef Victor Matthews runs the food and beverage program. He's owned Black Bear Distillery in Green Mountain Falls since 2000 and deans Paragon Culinary School in Colorado Springs, and Tava House is now partnering with that school to place students in its kitchens. Matthews targeted a soft opening for May 1, timed a few weeks ahead of Mother's Day weekend, according to investor spokesperson Mark Weaver speaking to the Colorado Springs Gazette in April. By August, the business had a live Yelp page reading "Now Accepting Reservations" for Firebrand, meaning the fine dining room has been seating guests for a full season heading into fall.
Not everyone was convinced the demand was there. Matthew Schniper, who writes the Side Dish newsletter and talked through the opening on Colorado Public Radio in May, called the six-acre campus "enormous" and pushed back on his own enthusiasm before finishing the thought.
"I did challenge a little bit to ask if there's the traffic for that there or the local support for that there."
He landed on cautious optimism, betting on summer tourist traffic through town plus people from the broader region willing to drive up for a steak dinner. Mayor Kellie Case took a longer view in December, telling the Gazette that one of the town's own characteristics is "rigidity," but that she expects Tava to work as "a catalyst for things to grow out of it," pointing to open development space nearby in the business corridor that could still fill in with more restaurants and shops.
Two Smaller Bets Got There First
While Tava House was still under construction, two smaller businesses already answered a version of Schniper's question, just at a lower price point.
Tacos El Amigo #4 opened in January inside the Safeway-anchored shopping center, taking over the space that Serrano's vacated when that restaurant relocated to Florissant. It's the brand's fourth location and its first move into Teller County, following two Colorado Springs locations and one in Fountain. The chain didn't need to build anything new or prove a concept. It brought an existing following and a menu built around birria tacos, and it landed in a high-traffic spot next to a grocery store, which is about as low-risk an entry as a restaurant can make.
The Woodland Social took a different kind of risk. Husband and wife Levi and Miranda Kleeb opened it over Independence Day weekend at 110 W. Midland Avenue, in the space that had been 110 Reserve, a spot with an outdoor patio that had already trained locals to treat it as a gathering point on the main drag. The Kleebs weren't new to food service. They run The Salty Cow food truck around southern Colorado and Red Beard Coffee Company in Pueblo West, and The Woodland Social is essentially those two businesses combined into one address, with food truck staples like beer mac and cheese with pulled pork and birria nachos alongside a morning coffee counter. During its soft opening the restaurant ran 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., likely closed at least one day midweek, with plans to extend hours and add breakfast once the couple gets a read on how the town actually uses the space.
Both of these openings solved a real gap without asking the town to change its habits much. A grocery-run taco stop and a familiar patio under new ownership are the kind of restaurant a town accepts almost immediately, because it already knows what to do with them.
What the Old Guard Still Handles
None of this replaced what was already working. Bottom Taphouse still covers the craft beer and a burger crowd, which Schniper pointed to directly when explaining that Tava's fine dining tier was filling a gap rather than competing with what already existed. Red Diamond Gastro Pub, Boards & Barrels, and Ute Lodge remain the answer to a Tuesday night out. Sofias Antojitos, Judge's Char-Grill, Cantina Verde, and Roy's Crew BBQ still hold down their own regulars. The restaurant map here didn't get rebuilt this year. It got a floor added on top of it, for the nights people want something the old map never offered.
The Market Closes Just as the Kitchens Open
The timing lines up in a way that's easy to miss if you're not watching the calendar. The Woodland Park Farmers Market runs Fridays from June through September, eight to one, at Memorial Park and along Henrietta Avenue and Center Street, right in the same few blocks where Tava House now sits. That outdoor season is ending this month, which means the town's main source of Friday foot traffic downtown is about to disappear for the winter at almost the exact moment three new kitchens are settling into their first full season of business.
The city isn't ignoring the handoff. Woodland Park's own site is running a "Celebrate the Fall Season with Main Street" push right now, alongside a renewed Downtown Development Authority microgrant program that funded new businesses through 2025 and extended its 2026 application deadline to June 1. Debbie Miller, president of the Greater Woodland Park Chamber of Commerce, announced back in April that Park State Bank & Trust would host a Business After Hours event inside the new steakhouse on May 19, using Tava House itself to pull chamber members through the door before the building had even fully settled in. The pattern reads like a town trying to convert summer market crowds into year-round restaurant customers before the snow makes that harder.
What This Actually Changes If You Already Live Here
The practical version of all this is simple. A year ago, a special occasion dinner in Woodland Park usually meant driving down the hill to Colorado Springs. Firebrand Chophouse on Center Street is now a real alternative, reservations open, four months into operation. A year ago, getting food-truck-quality birria meant catching The Salty Cow at an event or driving into Fountain for the closest Tacos El Amigo. Now both are a few blocks apart on Midland Avenue, one of them a permanent location. None of this required anyone to leave town, and none of it touched what was already working at the Bottom Taphouse or Boards & Barrels.
Whether Tava House's bigger bet pays off the way its investors hope is still an open question, and Schniper's skepticism is worth remembering the next time you drive past that glass building lit up at night. But the smaller test already has an answer. Woodland Park took on two new restaurants this year without changing anything about how it eats, and it took on one very large one to find out if it wants to eat differently. Fall is when that second answer starts to show.
If you're weighing a move to a town whose Main Street is clearly in the middle of figuring itself out, that kind of change is worth understanding before you buy, not after. Colorado's Choice Homes has been working Woodland Park and the rest of the Pikes Peak region long enough to read what a year like this one actually means for a neighborhood. Reach out for a free home valuation or relocation plan when you're ready to talk specifics.
