Ivywild School Has a New Schedule, and The Blue Star Is Taking Dinner Across the Street

Since Oct. 5 the doors at 1604 S. Cascade Ave. open at 7 a.m., and the change goes further than earlier coffee. The building is getting a new food lineup, part of the old lineup is moving to the north end of the hallway, and one of its best-known names is setting up again across South Tejon Street. Put together, those changes split the corner by the clock. The school is becoming the all-day place for coffee and casual meals, and The Blue Star is getting ready to return as the full dinner restaurant facing it.

What Changed Hands on Sept. 21

The changes come from an ownership transfer. SpringsMag reported that The Principal's Office, Ivywild Kitchen and Decent Pizza passed from Joseph Coleman to Mike and Amanda Bristol, effective Monday, Sept. 21. All three were original partners when Ivywild School opened in 2013. Coleman's Blue Star Group kept Gold Star Bakery and is putting its energy into The Blue Star restaurant at 1645 S. Tejon St.

Under the Bristols, the building is getting new hours along with new kitchens. Mike Bristol told SpringsMag the plan is to keep the founding idea of "a gathering place where people can come together to enjoy music, art and artisan food and beverages created on site."

The Morning Is Back, and It Came Back First

The first big change the Bristols made was to mornings. In The Gazette's coverage, Bristol said that before COVID The Principal's Office "was a place to come and get coffee, get pastries, get breakfast," and that bringing back the morning program was a top priority. According to the same article, the bar had been opening at 11 a.m.

The program opened on schedule. Side Dish with Schniper confirmed that Bluebird Breakfast and Yellow Brick Bake Shop were both running as of Oct. 5. Here is how a weekday now plays out inside the building, based on the posted hours:

• 7 a.m. The Principal's Office, Bluebird Breakfast and Yellow Brick Bake Shop all open. Coffee is still made with Loyal Coffee beans.
• 10:30 a.m. Bluebird stops serving breakfast.
• 8 p.m. The Yellow Brick counter closes. Its pastries are still sold through The Principal's Office until the bar closes.

Bluebird works from the bar counter just past The Principal's Office, across the hall from Ivywild Kitchen's current ordering window. The menu is short, with four main plates: French toast, a Gardner's Omelet, two eggs with smashed potato hash, and a Bluebird Breakfast Bowl or Burrito. Breakfast sausage is Ranch Foods Direct Callicrate beef, and one bowl option comes with Spark brisket smoked on site. You can add vegetarian green chile.

Yellow Brick took over Gold Star Bakery's old spot near the entrance. Side Dish lists blueberry muffins, cream scones, raspberry, cherry and cheese Danishes, Linzer tarts, cinnamon rolls, cakes, gluten-friendly items and breads baked through the day.

Bristol told The Gazette who the early hours are for:

"With as many remote workers as there are, it's a wonderful place for that too because it's a big space. You can get your breakfast and go hide out in a corner and work. Or if you want to be in a more social atmosphere, you can work at the bar at the Principal's Office in the morning."

The bar still serves cocktails later in the day. The fall drink menu was developed by front-of-house manager Alyssa Mather with Montana Horsfall of Craft Cocktail.

Lunch and Dinner Inside the School Are Being Reshuffled

With mornings running, the next changes are to lunch and dinner. Decent Pizza is paused. In mid-January 2027, SpringsMag reports that its space becomes The Restless Chef, a lunch and dinner restaurant with a menu built around different food cultures and regions, changing every quarter. Bristol told The Gazette the rotation "gives people something new all the time" and lets new executive chef Paul Ryan avoid being "locked into something long term." Chef Jay Gust of Ascent Restaurant Group consulted on the overall refresh.

Ivywild Kitchen stays but will move to the north end of the building. It will sit next to a new indoor counter for Spark BBQ. Until now Spark has served food-truck style from a shipping container in the outdoor gathering area at the front of the school. The Gazette describes the new arrangement as two hallway "kitchen encounters." Bristol said the Kitchen menu will stay "largely the same," with some new items from Ryan.

Ordering is changing as well. The building is moving to one point-of-sale system, so you keep a single food and drink tab no matter which counter you order from. Order by QR code and your food is brought to your table. Counter service will still be available. Weekend brunch, more live music, art openings and a larger private-event and catering program are listed as future plans, with no dates given yet.

Several tenants are not part of the transfer and are not changing:

• The Bristol Pub
• Salad or Bust
• Axe and the Oak
• Odds & Ends

Across South Tejon, The Blue Star Gets Ready for Dinner Again

If the school handles mornings and casual meals, the sit-down dinner is moving across the street. The Blue Star has a long history with this block. The Gazette notes that Coleman opened the first Blue Star in Old Colorado City in 1995 and moved it to South Tejon in 1998 in partnership with Bristol. He closed it in 2017. The Pikes Peak Regional Building Department issued permits in March for a $1.7 million remodel at 1645 S. Tejon St.

The new layout changes what kind of restaurant it is. Before, the space worked "kind of like two different restaurants," according to Blue Star Group marketing consultant Lindsey Hafemeister, quoted in The Gazette. The new version is one restaurant: a bar and lounge on one side, a dining room on the other, and the same menu in both. Gold Star Bakery moved across the street with the Blue Star Group, Side Dish reports.

The opening date is still open. As of The Gazette's Sept. 19 report, no grand reopening date had been announced, and the hoped-for window was "as soon as late fall or early winter." In a statement to The Gazette, Coleman said the team was "getting very close now" and wanted to be "firing on all cylinders" when the doors open this fall. The Blue Star's website still says only "FALL 2026."

Where Things Stand on Oct. 11

On the Calendar This Month

Bristol Brewing's events calendar and Side Dish both list dates in the next few weeks that put the new schedule to use. The 7 a.m. opening is what makes the Oct. 17 breakfast event possible:

1. Thursday, Oct. 15: Winter Warlock Oatmeal Stout tapping at Bristol, with live music, a group toast and a bite from Yellow Brick Bake Shop.
2. Friday, Oct. 16, 6 to 9 p.m.: Sip with Schnip Part 1 at The Principal's Office.
3. Saturday, Oct. 17, 8 to 10:30 a.m.: Sip with Schnip Part 2 at Bluebird, with a mimosa and Bloody Mary bar and a free coffee-tasting class.
4. Sundays, Oct. 18, Oct. 25 and Nov. 1: Bristol Beer Choir, singing music from "The Greatest Showman" this cycle.
5. Saturday, Oct. 31: Daytime trick-or-treating and crafts at Bristol, then "Hocus Pocus" under the stars at 6:30 p.m.

The next fixed date after that is The Restless Chef's mid-January opening. The Blue Star's reopening could come before it, but no date has been announced.

At Strategic Property Advisors, we follow changes like the Ivywild refresh because a block's daily routine is part of what living near it means. If you want to talk about what's changing on South Tejon and in the streets around it, request a market consultation with our team.