Finding a place to belong sometimes is a matter of path. Farley McDonough started on a journey from Virginia to Seattle in the early ‘90s when she was in her 20s. But fate brought her to Manitou Springs, where she became part of Adam’s Mountain Cafe family. Now as the owner, she brings the texture of vegetarian heavy food, great menu items, and a sense of belonging to her business.
“I’m actually from Virginia originally, and I was traveling cross-country with a boyfriend. In 1991, we were trying to get to Seattle. We ran out of money in Colorado in Greeley. He was a bartender, and I was a server. That’s how we would travel all around. We were looking for a place in Colorado to stop, get jobs, save up some more money, and head on to Seattle at some point.”
This is, of course, before cell phones. They were looking at physical maps and thought Manitou Springs was a campground and thought they would like the area. “We didn’t really want to go to Boulder.”
The boyfriend at the time put in about 40 job applications up and down Manitou Avenue looking for work. “I ended up putting in one application at Adam’s Mountain Cafe. It took me about three interviews to get hired, but I did get hired eventually and never looked back.”
McDonough later purchased the restaurant through an owner-carry situation because she didn’t have enough money to buy the restaurant. The previous owner carried the loan for her for five years. “That was in 2001 and that’s how I ended up getting Adam’s.”
Identity Through the Years
The cafe itself has been through four locations. In ’91, it was in its original location where the Mona Lisa Fondue restaurant is now. It had 10 tables, and was “a really small, super quaint, adorable little space with individual tables.”
She says it looked like a little British tea house (a small room where light beverages and meals were usually served), in a way with tile on the floors that were from the building originally. McDonough says she has maintained a lot of those characteristics through every single location.
When it was started, McDonough says the intention of Adam’s Mountain Cafe was for it to be a vegetarian restaurant (or mostly vegetarian) using organics and whole grains and cooking everything from scratch, “which is kind of interesting because at that time, that was really difficult and a difficult sell.”
That is why, she says, they introduced chicken and seafood in the late ’80s. “But we’ve never done red meat or pork just because the owner at that time didn’t want to go that far.”
However, they knew that they had to do something if they were going to stay afloat. They couldn’t be 100% vegetarian. McDonough says that they have sort of come full circle because “right now, everybody’s looking for plant-based options, vegan options, vegetarian options, organic options.” But, she says that, in terms of the older regulars versus the new people, the older regulars still have their favorites that skirts the line.
“For example, our chicken salad is super popular with the older customers [as well as] our fresh roasted turkey peak sandwich. It’s called the Peak Sandwich.” They fresh roast their turkey every night, just like on Thanksgiving, and make sandwiches with it.
Diversity of Food
The diversity of the food, McDonough says, is completely intentional. “I don’t know from the very beginning of the restaurant exactly how that diversity, that sort of global influence, was interjected into the menu but I do know that it certainly works for vegan and vegetarian diets.”
She explains” If you’re pulling from Mediterranean, Spanish, Thai, it’s really easy to do fresh and clean.” She mentions that, up until now, the breakfast and lunch menus have stayed pretty much the same over the years but, “We’ve gone off on a tangent with the dinner menu so that we can experiment even further. And that’s really, really worked for us and built our dinner crowd. ”
Her husband, who’s also the chef, has lived internationally in places like Thailand, Brazil, and Burma and has a knowledge of cooking all those types of foods. “That is why I think we’re able to tackle just about anything. I mean, we can do it all.”
That said, McDonough says she is feeling the pull to go 100% vegan for a lot of the customers. And while she does get a little criticism for the decision to have chicken and seafood on the menu (they serve a great New Orleans-trip inspired Royale Shrimp N’ Grits), her perspective is that she can’t pull all those items “because a lot of their regulars still eat all of that.”
A Balance of Tastes and Approach
She thinks that their regulars understand the way that they cook, and that those people value the fact that “we’re not bringing in foods that have a lot of things that you can’t pronounce in them. They like that.”
McDonough believes the younger crowd is more like, “Oh, they have a lot of vegan items but they don’t have a vegan burger.”
“Well, we have a vegetarian burger that we make from scratch. But you’re right. We don’t have a vegan burger,” she says.
All that said, McDonough always tries to operate with integrity and reassure people, “When I say that we are 50% plant-based, I’m really honoring that.”
Their equipment is different. They don’t use the same pans for meat dishes and vegan dishes. “We’re very, very careful, but that’s part of the challenge.”
Two of the dishes that are still on the menu – (and have been from the beginning) – that are quite popular are Senegalese vegetables and Tibetan vegetables. These are both vegan dishes from the original menu. “So I’m able to kind of dance the line a little bit, and it is working for us. But I don’t want to be a restaurant that’s preachy. I’ve never wanted to tell people that they should be vegan or try to convince people that they should be vegan. I’m not going to make that kind of decision. I’m just going to make sure that whatever we cook, whatever we prepare, is going to be fresh, it’s going to be clean, and it’s going to be made with integrity.”
