Best of Pueblo: The Daily Grind

Now that I live in a new town, I get to try new restaurants! I'm so excited! One of the ladies at our new church gave us a section from the paper called The Best of Pueblo 2009, and I'm going to make it my goal to try several of them over the next few months. Oh boy!

The Daily Grind is a coffeeshop and deli on Union Street. We went there last year when we were visiting Pueblo, but I don't remember much other than we liked it. It's kind of eclectic and chic, with old board games and paperbacks available for entertainment, and local art on the walls. It was voted the best coffeeshop in Pueblo, and when we returned today, we saw why.

One of the first things I noticed when I walked in was the wall of tea. It is a floor-to-ceiling shelf filled with containers of about forty varieties of loose tea. As tempted as I was to try them (Ginger Black Tea sounded especially tasty), I had to go with the Hazelnut Latte. I chose decaf because I'd already had tea that morning and I'm trying to be careful with my caffeine intake. Now, I have never found a coffeeshop that could rival Starbucks' hazelnut latte, but this was actually better. It tasted richer, with a little better hazelnut latte. I was impressed. Then I ate the food.

I ordered a half BLT on multi-grain bread and the soup of the day, which was baked potato. I opted for the cheese and bacon on the soup (I get 300 extra calories a day, so why not use them on bacon and cheese, right?) It was the thickest, creamiest, cheesiest potato soup I have ever had, and it was so rich I had to take some home. Yum! And the BLT was great, too. I had to trim some of the lettuce off the edges (I think they used a whole green leaf), and there was some kind of reddish-orange sauce on it that I was a little concerned about, but not for long! The bacon was excellent (Greg said it tasted expensive), the lettuce was crisp, the tomato was nicely ripe, and the bread was toasted to perfection. I don't know what kind of sauce the reddish-orange stuff was, but it was tasty. Oh, and they served it with a pickle spear that was over six inches long. Pickles are my favorite food lately, so I was perfectly happy.

I am now a fan of The Daily Grind. They have a large variety of sandwiches, pastries, soups, and salads, some really excellent coffeeshop drinks, and a pleasant, edgy ambiance. I imagine I will have more good things to say about them in the future!