Altitude Hospitality Group, owners of Pinery on the Hill, Garden of the Gods Gourmet, and the recently closed The Pinery in Black Forest, have hired Craig McHugh, who owned Black Forest’s popular Joyful Noise Farm, to help create a ìfarm to tableî dining and shopping experience on the eastern edge of Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Till Kitchen and Mercantile, a restaurant, and also a store and farmersí market, will open in late June near Powers Boulevard and Briargate.After selling his Black Forest farm, McHugh launched Pikes Peak Small Farms, an advocacy organization bringing urban farming opportunities to Colorado Springs. McHugh said helping Mitch Yellen and Altitude Hospitality develop a distribution system for small farmers and ranchers in Colorado will solve a catch-22 problem he found with Pikes Peak Small Farms.ìIt’s a ‘chicken and the egg’ thing for local food producers,î McHugh said. ìAs a small farmer, you’re looking for outlets to sell to; and, for me this is the best of both worlds: a catalytic project for producers to know that there are outlets to sell into consistently at volume.îCreating great restaurant fare out of locally grown produce is what sets Till apart, McHugh said. ìThe goal is to source as much local quality as possible, engaging with local ranchers and farmers up and down the front range to secure product for the restaurant,î he said.Colorado farmers will not be able to provide all that is needed year-round, McHugh added. The fresh sushi the mercantile store will sell might be hard to source at a mile above sea level. The area’s climate is also a challenge. ìIt is Colorado, so sometimes it’s harder to find items here so we’ll go farther afield, but our first priority will be to buy local and organic,î he said.McHugh and the Altitude Hospitality team hope this will lead to more opportunities for restaurants and local food growers to work together through a coordinated distribution system and growing plan. Having large harvests of certain vegetables at one time and nothing for the rest of the season makes it hard for both farmers and restaurants to meet each others’ needs.ìOne of the challenges is to build a distribution system that is predictable, saying we need quantities at these times and these prices, so they can plan it,î McHugh said. ìWe want to be able to go to farmers and have them stagger their planting or their flocks so we don’t have everybody growing at the same time. We want a way for producers to grow in a predictable way to make sure everyone can maximize the benefit from it.îTill Kitchen’s 18,000-square-foot restaurant area will have a main dining area and two dining rooms for private parties. There will be a 5,000-square-foot mercantile market for purchasing prepared entrees, fresh sandwiches and fresh-baked goods. ìWe’ll also have a real demonstration beehive so people can look in and see the bees,î McHugh said. Till will also host a Saturday morning farmersí market.More information for diners, shoppers and local small farms interested in being suppliers can be found at http://tillkitchen.com.
