Three downtown dining rooms on Tejon Street went dark at the end of summer 2026. Jax Fish House & Oyster Bar served its last meal at 11 S. Tejon St. on Aug. 30. By Sept. 9, TILL Neighborhood Bistro and Bar and the Vine and Wheel wine bar had both closed at 616 S. Tejon St. Over the same stretch, a record shop, a coffee café, a sports bar, a sauna studio and a curiosity shop opened within a few blocks.
On a list, that looks like ordinary churn. The addresses tell a more specific story. The large, full-service dinner rooms are not being taken over by other large dinner rooms. The new businesses are smaller and mostly locally run, each built around one thing, and several started as a truck or a stall somewhere else in town.
The rooms that closed are not becoming restaurants again
Begin at 616 S. Tejon. TILL and Vine and Wheel shared a building with Garden of the Gods Market and Café, and the three were set up to work together. The Market and Café handled mornings and brunch, TILL handled dinner, and Vine and Wheel ran as a standalone wine bar. The building is staying in use. In a statement shared with The Gazette, ownership said, "We are proceeding with extended hours at Garden of the Gods and will use the Till and Vine & Wheel spaces for private events." So a building that offered breakfast through a late glass of wine now offers the daytime café, plus rooms you book for an occasion. As of this writing we found no reporting that private events have started in those rooms.
The Jax space at 11 S. Tejon has no announced successor. The Downtown Partnership's September roundup lists Jax among the year's closures and names no new tenant. Jax had been downtown since January 2020. Its Boulder-based owner, Big Red F Restaurant Group, explained the closing as "a long and disturbing trip down COVID Road, our current recession that isn't a recession, and a challenging Colorado restaurant climate," and said it has no plans for another Colorado Springs location. The company's Boulder, LoDo and Fort Collins locations are still open.
The pressure reaches past downtown. Base Camp Restaurant at 2611 W. Colorado Ave. in Old Colorado City closed on Oct. 4, 2026, after opening in March 2025. The Gazette reported that the owner cited rising operating costs and a downturned economy.
What opened instead, and who opened it
The one large room that did get refilled became a bar. Oskar Blues Bar & Grill at 118 N. Tejon St. closed in late December 2025. Stoney's Bar & Grill opened there in the first days of September 2026. FOX21 gives the opening date as Sept. 2, and The Gazette's preview gave Sept. 1. Co-owners Stoney Jesseph and Will Trautman signed a 10-year lease for 15,000 square feet of the building's first floor and basement, according to The Gazette. The Sportsbook Bar & Grill, a locally owned bar and grill at 402 S. Tejon St., opened in the second quarter, according to the Downtown Partnership's Q2 2026 report. That means downtown added two sports bars on Tejon this year.
Most of the other openings are much smaller than a dinner room:
| Business | Address | What it is | Opened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lolley's Ice Cream | 216 N. Tejon St. | Family-owned, small-batch ice cream and baked goods, with gluten-free options | Grand opening advertised May 16; confirmed open by June 1 |
| Ice Guys/Dice Guys | 29 E. Moreno Ave. | Homemade ice cream and a board-game store in one shop | Grand opening June 12 |
| Ritual Hot House | 520 E. Pikes Peak Ave. | Women-owned sauna and contrast-therapy studio | Grand opening July 11 |
| Landmarks Coffee | 635 S. Sierra Madre St., Suite 100 | Permanent café from a local coffee truck | Early August |
| The Green Magick Vault | Inside COATI, 514 S. Tejon St. | Family-run shop | Ribbon cutting Sept. 1 |
| Easy's Records & Vintage | 327 N. Tejon St. | Standalone vinyl and vintage shop | Sept. 10 |
Several of these businesses grew out of something smaller in town. Brandon and Toni Watts built Landmarks Coffee from a coffee truck before opening the permanent café beside Weidner Field, per Springs Magazine. Easy's Records & Vintage moved out of a smaller shop inside COATI into its own storefront on North Tejon, owned by Erica Dunford and Ryan Fowler. COATI is still adding tenants, and The Green Magick Vault is now operating inside the same building.
The Downtown Partnership has also been helping with startup costs. CEO Chelsea Gondeck said at the group's September breakfast that it gave more than $330,000 in grants this year to 11 downtown businesses for signage, lighting, opening inventory and marketing. Those line items matter most to a new storefront operator, not to an established restaurant group.
The count is up, and the openings follow the residents
By the Partnership's count, 24 new businesses opened downtown in 2026 as of mid-September, with more than a dozen more in the pipeline. Most of them are on Tejon, between Moreno Avenue at the south end and Colorado College at the north. So downtown is adding businesses on net. What's shrinking is one particular format.
The resident numbers suggest why. More than 5,000 people live downtown now, up from 2,574 in 2024, according to the Partnership's figures reported by The Gazette. The same report says new and planned apartments are concentrated on downtown's southern and southwestern edges, near Weidner Field and the South Nevada corridor. More are coming. A second phase of Experience at Epicenter behind Weidner Field, which will add 410 apartments and 12,000 more square feet of retail, has been permitted.
Look at where the year's openings landed. Landmarks Coffee sits beside the stadium. Ice Guys/Dice Guys is on East Moreno, at the south end of Tejon. Just past downtown's southern edge, Guthrie's Chicken Fingers was set to open July 14 at 1520 S. Nevada Ave., run by Tanner Guthrie, his brother Garrison and their father, Joe Kelly Guthrie. Coffee, ice cream, a board game and a quick dinner are the kind of stops people make close to home, several times a week. A seafood dinner with a raw bar is usually planned ahead.
The south side also has a new morning option. On Oct. 5, The Principal's Office at Ivywild School, 1604 S. Cascade Ave., expanded its coffee service to mornings and evenings. It now carries hot breakfast from Bluebird Breakfast and baked goods from Yellow Brick Bake Shop. This came with a broader food-and-beverage refresh that started Sept. 21 under new owners Mike and Amanda Bristol, reported by Springs Magazine.
What is still pending
Some of downtown's announced openings haven't arrived yet. As of Oct. 10:
- Slice 420 Express, 107 N. Tejon St. This is the former Bento Heaven space. In August, Springs Magazine reported the owners were aiming to open "before fall." We found no confirmation that it has opened, and the business's own site, as of early September, listed only its West and East locations.
- The Karaoke Studio, 324 E. Pikes Peak Ave., Suite 140. Its website still describes a planned 2026 opening, with private themed karaoke rooms and a full-service bar.
- 11 S. Tejon St. No tenant has been announced for the former Jax space.
Prost Brewing Co. is also coming, but to the east side, not downtown. The Gazette reported it is remodeling the former Old Chicago Pizza + Taproom at First & Main Town Center into a biergarten and expects renovations to finish by the end of November.
The Tejon calendar through December
Downtown's event calendar centers on Tejon the same way the openings do. The Downtown Partnership's holiday page and event listings show this schedule:
- Banana Cat Bar Crawl, Oct. 11, 2 p.m. Check in at the Bananacat mural on Tejon between Colorado and Pikes Peak avenues.
- Shop Local + Win Local, Nov. 6 to Dec. 13. Runs across participating downtown retailers.
- Character Stroll, Nov. 14, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The route includes Tejon between Kiowa and Boulder streets.
- Festival of Lights Parade, Dec. 5, 5:50 p.m. On Tejon Street.
- Holiday Stroll, Dec. 9, 5 to 8 p.m. Along Tejon between Kiowa and Boulder, and Bijou between Cascade and Nevada.
Shop Local + Win Local is the first full holiday season for Easy's, Landmarks, The Green Magick Vault, Stoney's and the other places that opened this year. It is also the first season since 2019 that Tejon goes without Jax.
If you're watching how downtown is changing because you're weighing a home near Weidner Field or South Nevada, or because you're considering selling one, Colorado's Choice Homes can walk you through what these blocks look like right now. Ask us for a free home valuation or a relocation plan built around the downtown you'd actually be living in.
