
Savor the flavors of Colorado at Balanced Rock Cafe. A great place to refuel after a day of sight-seeing—enjoy one of our world-famous buffalo burgers, or choose from sandwiches, wraps, salads and more. Quench your thirst at the soda fountain, or enjoy a locally brewed beer in the shade of our back patio.
Address and Contact Information
Address: 324 Beckers Ln side, Manitou Springs, CO 80829
Phone: (719) 685-9045
Website: https://www.gardenofthegodstradingpost.com/restaurant-menu/
Menu Photos
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Reviews
Quick & friendly service, and the kids reported the bison burger with cheddar was “amazing!” The natural cut fries weren’t overly salty which was a nice surprise as most places use more salt than we’d like. Great experience.
Great place to fuel up before or after a hike.
Service was great, atmosphere was rustic, place was clean
Since they make everything after the order, it takes some time for the order to be ready. But I am just happy to see they serve good food in a high volume tourist spot which is rare in my experience.
Other side of the cafe has Starbucks drinks, ice creams and some bakery items. They don’t take Starbucks membership, but the drinks are legit, since I got the strawberry acai lemonade. We liked the chocolate ice cream too.
But in my experience I found some of their menu unexpected in a bad way. For example their “Bison burger”, there’s no nice way to say that it simply tastes like fake meat. I showed two of the staff my burger and I asked if it’s meat and the answer I got was “it’s real, we mix it up in the back” and “maybe we put too much spice this time”. Ok but who mixes up their burgers? You form a burger, you mix up meatloaf. So what I was served is like a tiny meatloaf burger. I’ve had soy filler meatloaf burgers in Japan and at least they’re honest about it in Japan. But this place claims their “Bison burger” is real meat and it left me questioning that. I couldn’t finish it.
And this “Bison Burger”? It’s a $15 small burger, I’m expecting at worst at least on par with mcdonalds at best an exotic gamey or dry meat balanced with the swiss to make it work. First bite, first three seconds it’s got a mouthwatering smoked salt dill flavor with mushrooms and warm swiss cheese, a nice 3 seconds. But at second 4 I realize that my mouth is filled with dill and salt like I dumped spices in my mouth, where’s my hamburger flavor?! I look down at the “meat” and it’s a spiced filled mush of what? No meat texture in the mouth, no spring, no meat flavor, just it’s smokey dill & salt. Which honestly compliments the mushroom & swiss, but that’s not a burger and certainly not a Bison burger. The counter looked at it and claimed it’s not a fake meat product, but if I were to replicate it I’d take their unsold impossible meat burgers, mash them with a potato and drown it in smoked dill flavor. Wala, I have replicated their “Bison burger”. I can at least confirm their chicken fingers are real chicken. But their burgers, huh? No, that doesn’t seem like it’s burger.
I give it 2 stars because their use of smoked dill is novel, captures the essence of grill smoke with pickle. If they sold that as sandwich like a big vegetarian portabella mushroom and that smoked dill flavor and swiss, that would be 10/10. But to use these flavors to mask the mush of “bison” they claim is Bison, it insults my pallet.