COATI — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

A recent conversation with a friend reminded me how I used to write positive reviews for Google, Yelp and Facebook for restaurants, coffeeshops and bars in Colorado Springs. It looks like I haven’t written any since praising Slice420 four months ago in early January.

I don’t go out near as much as I used to — but if a friend is visiting, then I love to show them around. Two nights ago, I went out with someone new to town. We hopped around, starting at Four by Brother Luck. I took her to one of my favorite places: Shuga’s. I introduced her to Shuga’s spicy Brazilian coconut shrimp soup. We ended the evening by having drinks at the Meso Bar (the upstairs bar) inside the culinary collective, COATI Uprise. The cocktails were great, as always, and constructed by one of my favorite bartenders in the Springs, Mark Anthony Good.

COATI is a place that I frequently take out-of-town friends to, largely because of the variety of options available. Along with the Meso Bar, there is a fine-dining venue called Ephemera upstairs. There’s also a ground floor bar called Rival Bar, with its own unique cocktail menu. There is a plethora of food vendors for your palate…

The Samich Shack offers a variety of sandwiches, burgers, dogs, fries and more. There’s Anju Korean Eats, established by Andres Velez of Piglatin Food Truck and Piglatin Cocina fame. With Luchals, you can enjoy soulful Cajun-inspired seafood available from acclaimed Chef Chantal Lucas — Luchals seems to always have a crowd whenever I’m at COATI. Haole Hawaiian Grindz offers coconut panko shrimp, pineapple pork ribs, poke bowls and more. That’s the short-list; for more vendors, visit: coatiuprise.com

Along with Mark Anthony Good, I’d like to give a shoutout to Lazlo Steele. He’s more behind the scenes these days, but I know he has done a lot menu development and cocktail creation for COATI (and other Colorado Springs venues). If he’s at COATI when I show up, he always takes time to talk with me — he always makes me feel welcome. Also, I’ve interviewed Aaron Ewton who enterprised the COATI project for a Colorado Springs Business Journal Q&A. Ewton has always been warm and friendly to me, and takes the time to acknowledge me even if he’s late to an engagement.

What else? Oh, every first Saturday of each month, COATI hosts a silent disco provided by Discreet Beats. It’s really cool. The last time I was at COATI and there was a silent disco, the place was PACKED. If you’ve never gone: there are three DJs on stage that are connected to distributed headphones — and the headphones have three channels, each channel connected to a different DJ. People can have the club experience, while others (not participating) can still have a conversation. The culinary collective also frequently hosts live musical acts, and have previously featured Ryan Flores and Christina Wells (with her band CC and the Silhouettes).

COATI Uprise

514 S Tejon St. Colorado Springs CO 80903

coatiuprise.com

Instagram: @coatiuprise

Cocktail pictured (from a visit in February): Witchtripper - rye whiskey, cognac,...

The buildout is top-notch. This has the potential to be the coolest place in the Springs. But the execution leaves a bit to be desired.

First, it's never clear to me what the hours for each place are. The last time I was there, one of the front workers said most places opened at "10:30 ish or 11." One place, Slowdownz, had noon listed on their website. As it turns out, Slowdownz evidently opened at eleven, but we already ordered from another place because we thought they weren't open.

Second, finding a working, accurate menu is way tougher than it should be. At the seafood/catfish/fries place, they had one menu on the Coati website and a different menu on their own website. The only thing they had on display at the kiosk was a "menu" that didn't include pricing. As it turns out, both online menus were wrong, and the posted menu (which again, didn't have prices) was the correct one. It's really hard for me to understand why each place doesn't have a clear menu posted that is accurate and matches the menu they have posted at the front entrance (and includes pricing).

Finally, the prices are simply out of whack at some places. Despite ordering at the counter, getting your own drink, bussing your own table, etc., a 15-25% tip is expected at most places. That, on top of $12-16 prices, means you end up being all-in at most places for the same price as you would be at a lot of pretty nice restaurants. Call me crazy, but $18 per person for a place like this is too much.

Anyway, I really hope this place does well, and I'll be back to give them another shot. But I really don't understand why they don't implement more standardization across the venues, like a standard opening time if you are serving lunch. I also really don't understand why something as basic as a clear menu doesn't seem to be a priority. These are problems that simply shouldn't happen at a well-run eating...

STAFF ASSAULTED MY SISTER. Went to the silent disco and have our own headsets, as we were leaving we were stopped by discreet beats and COATI staff demanding we give them our headsets that have a different logo and are customized. They asked to inspect them and we let them, at this point they began using vulgar language at us. After having snatched them out of our hands. Saying they have teens steal their headsets all the time. Not us! They also would not give our headsets back until we could provide proof. So then a lady with red hair and a green jacket grabbed my sisters arm and wouldn’t let us leave falsely imprisoning us. Then began screaming security and blocked the front door and would NOT let us leave. The burden of proof was not on us but we provided our receipts from over 8 months ago as she’s grabbing and pulling my sister arm hurting her leaving a mark. And literally wouldn’t let us leave. NEVER GO TO COATI or use DISCREET BEATS!!!! They might put their hands on you and cuss you out. I’ve never had this kind of experience here and this is a complete turn off. I will not be returning to COATI or a discrete beat event again! TOTALLY UNSAFE FOR ANYONE!!! Terrible communication, and straight up assault on us. No where in did it ever say that we couldn’t use our own headset or that we had to prove we owned them and never had an issue. And after all this we didn’t get an apology until the very end when I told her this was all wrong. All she offered was an I’m sorry, not even for her employee assaulting my sister and falsely imprisoning us.

@DISCRETE BEATS and COATI, we want a APOLOGY for your staff/vender falsely imprisoning us and assaulting us on your property during an event that you...