Regular Joe's Guide

They have a second location in Fountain. First visit: Feb 2026 I first heard of Olde World Bagels & Deli when reading about the top sandwiches here in Colorado Springs. This was further fortified by a couple of friends I have at "the bins" who would often bring in their bagel breakfast sandwiches before a day of digging through other's trash goods. The restaurant sits in a nicely appointed shopping center in the Cheyenne Mountain area of the city. It's a very nice part of town, and here's where you find the "old money" near the Broadmoor Hotel. I'm rarely in this part of town, but on this day, I was there for an estate sale. Afterwards it was lunch time, and fortunately I keep a printed sheet of paper to remind me of places I either need to try for the first time (priority) or those I need to revisit. Olde World quickly rose to the top. Olde World anchors the strip center and is a fairly large place, recalling the Jewish Deli's in Denver. Gi...

First visit: Feb 2026 I've been attempting to get on down to Pueblo at least once a month, to do some thrift digging and dining. As I've said here before, Pueblo is Colorado's little secret for the best food in the state. At least from a Regular Joe's Guide perspective. If you're a Michelin Star kinda person, then you're going to need to visit Denver or one of the fancy mountain resorts. You know that Michelin is a pay to play entity right? Wonder why Colorado Springs, much less Pueblo, do not have any starred restaurants? Because they refused to pay them. Doesn't matter to us, we're all about the real experience of eating in a city. You can have the fou fou. I did plenty of that in my business travel days. Never was impressed. All show, no substance. Pueblo is like a Midwest town dropped into Colorado. It's more like St. Joseph, Missouri than Colorado Springs. I've had Brues Alehouse circled for years, but just never found the right time to go....

First visit: Jan 2026 (Garden of the Gods) It was time for another meet with Dr. Boom, as our collective record businesses have been intersecting of late. Not too far from his homestead is Voodoo Brewing, one of the very few brewpubs here that is not from Colorado. I personally try to only support our locals, as they need all the help they can get, but the timing and the location suggested we should go here for lunch. I first became familiar with the Voodoo brand while in Baltimore, trying one of their beers at RJG favorite Max's Taphouse. This was when I had an office there from late 2016 through 2019. I also saw them in Pittsburgh during that same timeframe, which is where they are based. When they opened here, I thought it was quite curious. We certainly do not have a shortage of breweries or brewpubs here in Colorado Springs. I thought they were just branching out to a western location, and creating a new distribution center. I didn't realize they were a brewpub chain, not ...

First visit: Jan 2026 After all these years, the RJG's have never once stepped foot into Limon other than maybe to load up on gas. It was high time to change that. And what better way than to have an old fashioned Colorado styled Mexican breakfast. Welcome back home! On this quiet and pleasant Monday morning, we stopped into Lichia's, which appears to be somewhat new to Limon's downtown area. Their original location is in Kiowa, also in eastern Colorado. We were greeted by the owner, a very friendly man who took our order. A few minutes later out came that most beautiful spicy green chile smothered breakfast burrito. What you don't see in the picture is the homemade sausage (not chorizo) that was buried in the wrap with the eggs. So delicious. Mrs. RJG had the excellent Huevos Rancheros that you see. It's under debate if we want to add Lichia's to the RJG Rotation. It's not really that far from Colorado Springs. And odds are good we'll pass through again...

Latest visit: Jan 2026 First visit: Jun 2009 Leaving Wichita, we now enter into very familiar territory. Driving north on I-135 to Salina, followed by I-70 into Limon. We've done this journey many times, especially since we had the Denver townhome between 2009 and 2012. As with Highland Super Submarine, Gella's was a destination spot. It's also one of those I-can't-believe-I-haven't-documented-this-yet places. We've been here a few times over the years, though it's now been 12 years since our last visit. It was always crowded, and it appears they've expanded to the building next door. It was a slow Sunday night, despite the NFL playoffs, which was fine with us. There's a saying out there, and my parents were one to repeat it, that states "You can never go back". That means an experience you had in the past cannot be replicated and always ends up in disappointment. I've long maintained that was a bunch of bunk. If there's ever been a...

Latest visit: Jan 2026 (E. Harry) First visit: Nov 1991 More tolls through Oklahoma and Kansas and we arrive in Wichita on this fine Sunday morning. There's no way we're going to Kansas without indulging in some locally made crispy tacos. I've waxed nostalgic about these plenty in the pages of the RJG, so I won't do that again. Taco Shop had missed my retrospective back in 2023 primarily because we didn't go to Wichita. They're a local chain, that currently has 5 stores. I first went here with Mr. Music when we did a record buying trip through the area. Which ties nicely to this vacation, as it has the same premise. Sort of anyway. We'd been two other times as well, as noted at the bottom of this post. For a Sunday in the old part of Wichita, Taco Shop packed a nice crowd. Our game plan was to have three tacos here and three at another taco place after doing some thrifting. My original wish was to go to Taco Rio, probably my favorite of them all, but they...

First visit: Jan 2026 (Woodland Hills) Crossing over the river, we arrive in Oklahoma, and then it's time to pay the tolls. All these years later, and Oklahoma is still bilking travelers with their ripoff toll roads. Most of them down to one lane for their eternal repairs. I remember these roads from the 70s traveling with Dad. Expensive too. I'm not looking forward to my "license tag" bill, especially after Hertz puts their surcharge on it. Oh well. Eventually we arrive in Tulsa, another city I have a lot of familiarity with due to Dad's business travels. I also conducted some business here back in 2003-04. By some quirk, Mrs. RJG has never been, even though we had traveled to Oklahoma quite a bit when living in DFW. Too far northeast. We piddled and thrifted around Tulsa in the late afternoon and then it was time for din-din. We hadn't gone to a brewpub yet, so let's visit one closest to our hotel. We were in a nice suburban area, so it's no surprise...

First visit: Jan 2026 We continued our westward journey through Arkansas, via a couple of very poor towns, where the thrifting proved excellent. By lunch time, we were in the Fort Smith area. I haven't been here since 1980! And yes, it was with my dad on business. We once again dived in for barbecue, though this time we managed to find an independent. The first thing you'll notice walking in is it's a very Christian oriented place (note tag line). Fine with us as we're of the faith, but pagans may want to look elsewhere. And they get the clever name effect with JC. Hey don't scoff, The Green Mile did the same thing. This is a full service restaurant and we were seated promptly.  It's a spacious restaurant with lots of natural light.  I saw bologna on the menu, a meat you almost never see. And I still didn't because they were out of it. Darnit! So I went back to the cheeseburger. Oh my gosh, best one on the trip! Note the knife stab. That was how it was serve...

First visit: Jan 2026 After some thrifting in Memphis, we headed due west to Little Rock. This would be our Friday night destination. Continuing on with our barbecue desire, we decided on Whole Hog Cafe which was very close to our hotel. Similar to Jim 'N Nick's, you order at the counter. And since it was dinner time we also each had a beer. We went with the pilsner, which was flat as a pancake. For some dumb reason I drank it anyway, but Mrs. RJG was smart and said she didn't want it. I asked to switch out, and received a much better IPA. And I got to drink that one too weeeee. As for the meal, I settled on a two meat platter rather than a sandwich. They don't serve hamburgers. Having decided we weren't going to get mac n' cheese anymore, I crazily went for a salad. That's new behavior. It actually was pretty good, despite the packaged dressing as if I was on an airplane. The other side was the spicy baked beans, which were very good, and had a mild kick. T...

Latest visit: Jan 2026 First visit: Jul 1977 I recently spoke of traveling by the methodology of "Planned Randomness". Within that framework there are occasional destination spots. Highland Super Submarine Sandwich Shop was one such place. I wanted to be there by lunch, so that was another reason I selected Tupelo over Oxford while in Mississippi.  That first visit is not a typo. And I have a story to go with it. It was one I wanted to tell back in 2015, my other visit, but for whatever reason I could not get the energy to document that trip. So I'm taking care of that now. I often talk about my dad in these pages because I grew up traveling with him on business. He was the old fashioned "traveling salesman". He'd pop in the car on Sunday night or Monday morning, and work his territory through the week and come home on Thursday night or Friday afternoon. Almost every week, except for when he worked the DFW area. During the summers, while out of school, I wou...

First visit: Jan 2026 Leaving Alabama, we continued northwest into Mississippi. I have quite a bit of familiarity with the state, since it was part of my dad's territory growing up. Mrs. RJG has only been once (Jackson), on a trip we took in 2016, that I unfortunately did not document. This also represents her first night in the state, yet another goal that is ongoing (not that she cares about it really, just crazy ol' me). The timing was such that Tupelo made more sense than Oxford, which was my original plan. Besides Ole Miss was playing that night in the NCAA football semi finals (of all nights, we had to be there). Guessing the restaurants would have been packed with fans. Tupelo is most famous as the birthplace of Elvis Presley. Having had barbecue for lunch, why not go for a second round of Thai food? Nao Thai popped up and looked good, so let's go there. The atmosphere is awesome, the restaurant is filled with antiques. Perfect lighting. Very homey feeling. As for th...

First visit: Jan 2026 In case you're wondering the method to my madness, the way we prefer to travel is what I term "Planned Randomness". It's a basic framework, then the various details emerge as we go. For example, I obviously have to plan the air travel, the first night hotel, and the rental car. From there, it's let's see where we are, what do we want to accomplish, where are we going to eat, and where are we going to spend the night. Fortunately for us, I have tons of airlines miles and hotel points from years as a road warrior in business, so everything is essentially free on that front. And given the time of year we're traveling, the deals are especially good. Our daily activity revolves around thrift shops, rather than typical tourist pursuits, as we both love to dig for treasures. Her specialty is vintage clothes, mine is physical media and games. Having a rental SUV makes it easy to haul it all back home, even though there was a full record colle...

First visit: Jan 2026 With the record collection now secured, we continued journeying west and selected the Montgomery area as our place to hunker down for the evening. I'd only been to the capital of Alabama once before, interestingly on a record buying trip way back in 1992. Yep, over 35 years ago, while still a single lad. Mrs. RJG has never been, and she's getting closer to checking off all the capitals, a feat I completed personally in 2012 (Olympia, WA). And I've never spent a night here, so that's another checklist I'm working on. We all know Mrs. RJG has to get in some Thai food on any given trip, and I figured why not accomplish that early. It's also good for our digestive systems. Thai Naka looked like the best bet of the few options available. Oh, and look at that, they have Singha available. Did that cold beer taste good! The restaurant is nice, very spacious, with good lighting, though probably could have been more intimate. As for the meal, I'v...

First visit: Jan 2026 (Fairburn) Mrs. RJG and I are on our first road trip of the year! Very early as it turns out, and an unusual thing to do in the potential snowy dead of winter. However, the long term forecast looked good on this particular week, so we found a window of opportunity and took it. The impetus of the trip was to acquire a record collection from a fellow music traveler in Alabama. So we flew to Atlanta, rented an SUV, and headed back to Colorado Springs. Eight states, seven days, and six nights. The first night we arrived close to midnight (10 our time), so no opportunity to dine out. In fact we had made ham sandwiches before leaving and enjoyed them in the hotel room. So we begin our food journey on Day #2, as we left our airport hotel location and headed southwest towards Alabama to scoop up the collection. We settled on That Burger Spot #6, a local chain that currently has seven locations in Atlanta, mostly to the south. They are of the "modern variety" whe...