Marci Clark
Phone
(719) 352-9837
Email
[email protected]
For years the honest thing to say about a Tuesday night in Manitou was that you'd probably drive into Colorado Springs for dinner. The Loop was reliable, Swirl had its patio, Savelli's had the ravioli, and after that the list got thin fast, especially if you wanted something you hadn't eaten twice that month. August 2026 is the first summer that stops being true. A new kitchen filled a real gap in the Baker House, and the free-music calendar quietly spread itself across three parks on three different nights. Put together, the week finally holds up without a drive east on Colorado Avenue.
This is a note for people who already live here. No tourist itinerary, no Incline mention, no ranking of which spring tastes least like a penny.
The Baker House swap is the story of the summer
The single most useful thing that happened to Manitou's dinner options this year was inside the Baker House, where Manitou Thai & Ramen opened in the space that used to hold Persephone Grae's, and it is essentially the first Thai restaurant the town has ever had. That is a strange sentence to type about a village that has been feeding tourists since the 1870s. It is also the reason the ramen line matters more than a normal restaurant opening would.
If you were a Persephone Grae's regular, the other half of the news is that they didn't close. Persephone Grae's relocated to 511 N. 30th Street on the Westside, roughly a seven-minute drive from Manitou Avenue, which means the trade is real: a walkable Thai and ramen kitchen in town, and the old favorite still exists, just a short hop away.
A village rife with burgers and beef jerky finally got a bowl of tonkotsu inside its own zip code. That is not a small change to the weekly menu.
The knock-on effect worth naming is this: the Baker House sits mid-block on the stretch where you'd normally decide whether to eat here or go elsewhere. Adding a broth-based option to that decision point is what changes the week, not just the meal.
Free music is now a three-park operation
The other structural shift is that the summer music calendar is no longer a single series in a single park. In August it runs on three different footprints, and knowing the geography saves you the walk-around.
- Soda Springs Park, the main stage of the season. The Summer Concert Series runs Mondays at 7:00 p.m. and Fridays at 6:00 p.m. through the warm months. This is the one visitors also find, so if you want to actually hear the band, arrive before the set, not during.
- The Carnegie Library lawn, the quieter option. The Pikes Peak Library District programmed Wednesdays 6 to 7:30 p.m. in June and July for the Manitou Springs Library Summer Lawn Concert Series on the Carnegie lawn. Bring a chair. It reads less like a concert and more like sitting in someone's yard while a band happens to play.
- 7 Minute Spring Park, the newcomer. On August 1 the Mineral Springs Foundation, SunWater Spa, Historic Manitou Springs, and the Manitou Music Foundation are hosting Springs & Strings at 7 Minute Spring Park, 422 Washington Avenue, a free afternoon of music tied to the mineral water and local history. Washington is a block off the main drag, which is the entire point.
Three nights, three parks, all free, all within walking distance of most of downtown. If you're new to town or newly retired into it, that's your standing weekly rhythm without lifting a finger.
A weekend, mapped for someone who lives here
Below is how I'd actually stack a Friday-through-Sunday in August. Not a "best of Manitou" list. Just the sequence that respects the town's timing.
| When | Where | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Fri 6:00 p.m. | Soda Springs Park | Concert starts, sun still on the west face of the canyon. |
| Fri 7:30 p.m. | Manitou Thai & Ramen, Baker House | Post-show ramen, walk from the park is under five minutes. |
| Sat morning | Manitou Springs Farmers Market | A weekly market that leans local farmers, artists, and musicians, not a tourist bazaar. |
| Sat afternoon | Green Horse Gallery | Local residents Ken and Mary are showing paper-and-laser luminaries and ceramic-plus-laser-cut-bead jewelry through July into the summer. Free. |
| Sat 7:00 p.m. | Swirl, 717 Manitou Ave | The patio is open unless the weather is below 45, raining, or snowing, which in August means always. |
| Sun midday | The Loop, 965 Manitou Ave | Authentic Mexican since 1993, chef-led kitchen, fresh ingredients. The margarita cadence is the reason to sit down. |
| Sun late afternoon | 7 Minute Spring Park or Memorial Park | Whichever is programmed that weekend. Walk the mineral springs loop on the way. |
Nothing on that list requires getting in a car. That is the entire thesis of the summer.
What's already on the calendar for the next six weeks
If you plan your fall now, three items belong on the fridge:
- Labor Day weekend, the Commonwheel Artists' Co-op festival in Memorial Park. Commonwheel has been the premier Pikes Peak art festival for over half a century, free, family-friendly, featuring artists from the community, the state, and beyond. Traffic on Manitou Avenue is worse than any other weekend of the year. Walk in from your house. Don't try to park.
- September 26, the Heritage Brew Festival. Local breweries, food, live music in the park, and proceeds support the local free museum. It sits in the shoulder week between the summer concert wrap and the fall event schedule, which is why locals actually go.
- October, the Emma Crawford Coffin Races. October brings skeletons in shop windows, coffins racing through downtown, and a festival built around it. Buy your groceries the day before. Anything you need from downtown on race day you are getting on foot.
The Wine Festival, which is not what you think it is
One quick calibration for anyone who moved here in the last year and hasn't been to it yet. The Manitou Springs Wine Festival is billed as the Colorado Wine Festival for a reason. Tastings from 30 Colorado wineries, held in Memorial Park, with live music and food trucks, and it marks the first such festival of the season in the state. General admission is $75, VIP is $100, both plus taxes and fees, with VIP entry at 11 a.m. and general at 12:30 p.m. The reason to note the price is that plenty of residents assume it's a small local pour. It isn't. It's a headliner event with headliner pricing, and if you want in, tickets go before the weekend of.
For the summer season, the shuttle detail worth knowing: the festival bus drops at 10 Old Man's Trail at the entrance, pickup and drop is at 484 Manitou Ave at the Duck Stop with the painted birds, and the bus is free through October 2026. If you live west of downtown, that bus is a genuine amenity for the whole season, not just festival day.
The point of all of this
Three years ago the honest answer to "what's on this weekend in Manitou" was "the concert, and then we'll figure it out." The concert is still the anchor. What changed is that the anchor now has a proper dinner next to it, a second free show two nights earlier at the library, and a third gathering at 7 Minute Spring Park that most tourists still don't know exists. The week finally has a shape. You don't have to build it from scratch.
If you're thinking about what your Manitou house is actually worth now that the town's weekly rhythm has thickened up like this, or you're weighing whether to hold, refinance, or list, Lux Living Properties is happy to walk the block with you and talk through it. Let's Connect.