Dogtooth Coffee Co.: New urbanism refined

Dogtooth Coffee Co. looks like one of those impossibly picturesque artists’ renderings that architects use to show what a building will look like when it is done.

Outside, cyclists and dog walkers crisscross on the sun-dappled Shooks Run Trail, which runs right past the cafe’s garden patio.

Inside, old friends chat over lattes in comfy chairs under good light, students devour Wi-Fi in the glow of their laptops, kids press their faces against the cool glass of the ice cream case. There are books and magazines to peruse. There is a vegetable garden out back that belongs to the apartment above.

In short, it is a well-loved community hub. The whole mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly thing might as well be ripped from a new urbanism textbook. It’s almost creepy how pleasant it is.

And the food ain’t too bad, either.

The little cafe is tucked in the quiet, leafy streets of century-old houses in Colorado Springs’ Patty Jewett neighborhood. Husband and wife Amy and Mark Kalmus opened Dogtooth in 2006 very close to where Amy grew up.
They started by serving just coffee. Now, they offer a lunch menu of soups and sandwiches, homemade gelato, and a smattering of breakfast dishes.

Lunch is the best bet. Most sandwiches come on a thin but robust ciabatta, perfectly grilled until it is both crispy and chewy. Pair that ciabatta with thinly sliced roast beef, sautéed red onions, gooey Swiss, a dose of potent horseradish, warm dipping broth, and chips and a pickle on the side ($7.60), and you have a dynamite sandwich au jus.

Just as good is the pollo speziato: more of that perfect ciabatta stuffed with chicken breast, marinated tomatoes, feta cheese and a delectable, better-than-pesto basil mayo.

There are some dogs on the menu, too. The BLT, which, when done right, is perhaps the world’s perfect sandwich, came with wimpy strips of bacon and a starchy pink wheel of what food-service purveyors try to pass off as tomatoes. As a gardener reveling in August, I’m not convinced any restaurant serves a tomato worth eating. Dogtooth adds guacamole for richness, but it doesn’t help. And all the sandwiches are hurt by an escort of a sour, flaccid pickle spear.

Fortunately, you can top off even a disappointing sandwich with an array of spectacular gelatos ($3 each). Gelato, which I thought for a long time was just ice cream served with an extremely small spoon, is, in fact more of a frozen custard. It generally uses less cream and more eggs, making it lower in fat than most ice cream. Not that you would ever know. A dish of chocolate hazelnut or Dulce de Leche is as rich as any Ben & Jerry’s.

The coffee at Dogtooth is a shade less than fantastic. A bottomless cup is a steal at $1.15, and the place has a full range of good hot and cold espresso drinks, but I have yet to fall in love with any of its straight beans. I even bought a pound of the Ethiopian and brewed it at home, but there was no romance.

Breakfast is more limited than lunch. Dogtooth serves up bagels and pastries, including a good cherry almond scone ($2.50) from Alpine Bakery, but the one hot item on the menu, breakfast tacos, disappoint. The tiny preassembled bundles of flour tortilla with egg and a choice of potato, sausage or bacon, are bland and too small to justify the $2 price tag. A larger burrito or sandwich that showed some of the flair of lunch would probably be a hit with the picturesque regulars who pack the place every morning.

Clearly, locals are showing the place some love. Now, it’s time to give some back with better bacon and stepped-up coffee.

Dogtooth Coffee Co.
3 out of 5 stars
(a neighborhood treasure)
Address: 505 E. Columbia St., No. 100
Contact: 632-0125, dogtoothcof fee.com
Hours: 6:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays
Entrees: $5-$7.60
Vegetarian: soups and sandwiches
Alcohol: no
Credit cards: yes