You’d be hard pressed to find a place that’s more representative of this week’s Arts Month theme — music and dance — than Old Colorado City’s historic Waycott Building. Music has reverberated through its walls for more than 120 years.
Live entertainment in the building on the northeast corner of 25th Street and Colorado Avenue dates from 1901, when the Waycott Opera House opened with a large theater on the second floor. In succeeding years, it’s housed a dance hall, a vaudeville theater and, after 1979, Meadow Muffins, a hugely popular place to eat, drink and dance to live bands.
Rob and Susan Hirt, who bought Meadow Muffins in 2014 and reopened it as Mother Muff’s Kitchen & Spirits, are carrying on the live music tradition. The Hirts hire bands, both local and out-of-towners, to perform Saturday nights. But the highlight of the week is the Easy Like Sunday Morning Jam Brunch, a can’t-miss occasion for many local musical artists and regular patrons.
The Hirts, who also own the Hatch Cover, started the Sunday jam brunch a few months after opening Mother Muff’s, Susan Hirt said.
“I love breakfast, and I love New Orleans,” she said. “I took their jazz brunch idea and was like, ‘How can we make this Colorado style?’”
Hirt said the jam brunch’s popularity has a lot to do with the two local musicians who run it — Tim Costello and Dylan Tiefer. Singer-guitarist Costello has been around Colorado Springs long enough to know nearly everybody who’s part of the music scene, she said. Costello and multi-instrumentalist and singer Tiefer founded the popular local band Blue Frog.
“I’ve known Tim for 20-plus years,” Hirt said. “He used to come in and play at the Hatch Cover. I met Dylan through one of our servers when we first opened.”
Mother Muff’s underwent several months of remodeling when the Hirts bought it.
“Meadow Muffins had kind of faded in popularity,” Hirt said. “They had tried to turn the back room into a nightclub, so everything was painted black and gold.”
She remembered Meadow Muffins’ heyday, when the space was adorned with movie posters and antique memorabilia.
“The previous owners had taken down a lot of the antiques and the paintings and had been selling stuff to make rent,” she said. “We renovated it back closer to what it was previously.”
They preserved the hand-carved wood ceiling but removed the stripper pole previous owners had installed.
The music and dance area remained in the front of the building, which sports an Old West saloon feel, and the back room became a separate space with steampunk décor and a sports bar vibe.
I love breakfast and I love New Orleans. – Susan Hirt
They also expanded the limited dining options into a full-service restaurant, with breakfast served all day and night until the kitchen closes — at midnight Sundays through Wednesdays and 1 a.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
The name was a play on the fact that most people referred to Meadow Muffins as Muff’s.
“I wanted people to understand that while it was a little different, it was closer to what it had been when everybody loved it,” Hirt said.
It took a while for the jam brunch — and Mother Muff’s itself — to catch on.
“We started out relatively quiet,” she said. “But now Sunday is one of our busiest days. Without a doubt, it’s something that’s unique.”
Mother Muff’s used to have live bands on Fridays but stopped during the pandemic, Hirt said. Now the front room hosts Crazy Tony’s Karaoke on Fridays, as well as Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Saturdays, she books local bands, groups from Denver and touring acts.
“Whether I personally like the music is not a factor,” she said. “I just think about, “Is this going to be a good fit for our side of town?’ So we do a lot of jam, rock ‘n’ roll oldies, bluegrass — that type of stuff.”
The Westside and Manitou Springs have a long tradition of live music that distinguishes the area, Hirt said.
Local Westside bars have nurtured successful local bands like Shakedown Street, Blue Frog and the Tejon Street Corner Thieves — which built up a local following at Mother Muff’s before they became a national touring act, she said.
“I’ve always felt the Westside was the alternative to the young nightclub crowd, which is what Tejon Street is now,” she said.
A more mature audience can find live music every weekend, and often during the week, at venues like Mother Muff’s, Alchemy, Nova West and Front Range Barbeque in Old Colorado City, the Armadillo Ranch and the Townhouse Sports Grill in Manitou, and the Buffalo Lodge in between.
“I don’t see that as competition,” she said. “Whenever anybody opens, it’s just one more reason for people to be down here and check out what everybody on the Westside has to offer.”