"Sooner than later, we'd love to start Friday fish fries and maybe a Sunday pasta special this winter." Cody Lindig said that to The Flume in June, standing in an Alma saloon he and Hatte Meneau had bought three months before. Talking about winter in June might sound early. It also describes most of what happened to eating out in South Park this year. The places changing hands, changing buildings or leaving their wheels behind were all planning for the cold months.
A year ago, a good share of Fairplay's casual food came out of trailer windows, ran for a season, or sat in a Main Street building that burned before the year was out. Now almost all of it has a street address with a door. This October is the first time the town heads into the off-season with that arrangement in place.
The Fire That Moved Breakfast to Front Street
The first change wasn't planned. Around 4 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025, a fire destroyed Mr. Burro Cafe at its Main Street location. No one was hurt, and The Flume reported that the cause was still under investigation. Denver7's headline that month called the cafe a neighbor of more than 20 years.
Seven months later, on July 4, 2026, Mr. Burro had its grand reopening at 501 Front Street, in the old Millonzi's building between the Colorado Mountain Hat Company and the Park Bar. The menu came back unchanged: breakfast burritos, chicken fried steak, eggs Benedict, waffles, avocado toast, burgers and wraps, gluten-free options, and the case of baked goods by the register. The cafe's website still lists 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
The address is what changed. Breakfast in Fairplay used to be a Main Street stop. Now it sits on the historic block of Front Street, a short walk from Colorado Cantina at 456 Front Street. Nobody chose to put a daytime cafe and an evening cantina on the same street. A fire did that, and the result is a stretch where you can get breakfast, a drink at the Park Bar, and dinner without moving the car.
From a Truck Window to a Front Door
The other moves were planned, and they all went the same way.
J.R.'s Pizza Place spent its early life as a food truck. In spring 2026 it opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant at 297½ U.S. 285, and The Flume reported that the building lets it stay open year-round. Longtime residents will know the space. It's the former South Park Brewery, empty of beer since the brewery's last day in Fairplay on March 31, 2024, when South Park Brewing moved its brewpub to Colorado Springs. A highway-front building that sat waiting for about two years now serves pizza seven days a week. As of June, the hours were 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Maverick Mountain BBQ started with even more temporary plans. The original idea was to serve seasonally at summer events. This spring the trailer moved from its old spot beside Otto's to a fixed site in front of Utopia Tire at 22077 U.S. Highway 285. The June report listed weekend hours, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m.
Maverick also shows that a business can have a fixed address and still work events. On Sept. 19, at the 3rd Annual Fairplay Fall Festival on the Old Courthouse Lawn at 418 Main Street, it joined Southern Soul Pizza and Now The Good Side in the food-truck lineup. The Town's own festival post told visitors to make a day of it and try Fairplay's brick-and-mortar restaurants as well. The kitchens that once were the festival food now have addresses to send people to afterward.
The Date the Cantina Passed
Colorado Cantina is the clearest sign that the timeline has changed.
The restaurant soft-opened at 456 Front Street in late August 2025. On Sept. 21, 2025, roughly a month in, it announced a seasonal pause, cited staffing, and signed off with "see you in Spring 2026." It came back. Posts attributed to the Cantina promoted live music on the patio over Labor Day weekend, "dinner and a show" on Sept. 19, and a new fall cocktail called the Rosemary Blush on Sept. 26.
Then on Oct. 2, 2026, the Cantina invited people in on Saturday for dinner, drinks and live music. That Saturday was Oct. 3, twelve days past the date it closed for the season last year. The most recent hours on its website are marked "New Hours! for September": noon to 7 p.m. Sunday, closed Monday and Tuesday, 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and noon to 9 p.m. Saturday. That label is a month old. The Cantina hasn't published a winter schedule, so any visit after the first week of October should start with a phone call.
Up the Road in Alma, a Building Gets a New Name
The Dusty Bottle Saloon at 24 North Main Street in Alma completes the picture. Meneau and Lindig bought the former South Park Saloon in March 2026 and renamed it after a Grateful Dead lyric: "The bottle was dusty, but the liquor was clean." According to The Flume, the green-sided building has served as a post office, a bank, a bar, a grocery outlet and briefly an appliance store. Photographs and newspaper clippings donated by the Town of Alma now hang on its walls, and local artists painted murals in the bathrooms.
"Our vision has been to bring this building back to what it was at one point in time, and with that comes the culture we are trying to drive; creating a place that everyone feels welcome." — Hatte Meneau, to The Flume
The summer plan was a scratch kitchen opening in July, with pizzas, calzones, stromboli and salads, followed by a grill and fryer. The winter ideas are the ones in the opening quote: Friday fish fries, a Sunday pasta special, a rotating pasta menu, and community dinners around the holidays. In June the saloon opened Wednesday through Sunday. Its website now shows Monday through Friday from 3 p.m. to close and weekends from noon to close. More open days than in June suggests the new owners plan to run through the quiet months.
The Map as It Stands, With Last Published Hours
Each entry below gives the most recent schedule that's been published and when it was published. None of these businesses has posted a dated winter schedule, so treat any hours older than a month as a starting point.
- Mr. Burro Cafe, 501 Front St., Fairplay. Breakfast and lunch, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, according to the cafe's current website. Phone listed in The Flume: 719-837-2028.
- Colorado Cantina, 456 Front St., Fairplay. September hours: Sunday noon to 7 p.m., Wednesday through Friday 3 to 9 p.m., Saturday noon to 9 p.m., closed Monday and Tuesday. Advertised live music for Saturday, Oct. 3.
- J.R.'s Pizza Place, 297½ U.S. 285, Fairplay. June hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, until 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with year-round operation as the stated plan.
- Maverick Mountain BBQ, 22077 U.S. 285, Fairplay, in front of Utopia Tire. June hours: Saturday and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. No fall schedule has been published.
- The Dusty Bottle Saloon, 24 N. Main St., Alma. Weekdays 3 p.m. to close, weekends noon to close, according to its website.
If you're heading downtown on a weekday, note that CDOT and Tricon Construction began rebuilding the Fairplay mobility hub on Sept. 16. The site is on Colorado Highway 9, which is Main Street, at 4th Street. The project adds a new transit stop, a parking lot, and ADA-compliant sidewalks for Bustang Outrider and Summit Stage connections. Crews work 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and until noon on Fridays, with shoulder and single-lane closures in the work zone. Completion is expected late in 2026. On a weekday, Front Street and the highway-side spots are the easier stops until the work wraps up.
New restaurant locations matter to whoever owns the building next door. If you own property near Front Street or along U.S. 285 and want to know how this year's changes affect what it's worth, Cirillo Group can walk you through it in person. Request a Complimentary Valuation & Consultation.