Where to Find Great Coffee in Salida, CO

Salida is where the Arkansas finally relaxes. Twenty-five miles down the valley from Buena Vista the river has done its hardest work, and the town sits along it at 7,083 feet with the easy confidence of a place that has been here a while — the largest National Historic District in Colorado, a hundred-some brick buildings that went up when the railroad still ran the valley.

Monarch is up the highway to the west; in June the whole place turns out for FIBArk, the oldest whitewater festival in the country, running since 1949. It is a river town and a rail town and, lately, an arts town, and the coffee reads like all three at once.

The scene has a center of gravity named Mountain Phoenix — a river guide's coffeehouse that burned in 2005 and was rebuilt from the ashes, now roasting at altitude and supplying much of the valley. Around it sits a serious specialty bar, Coffee by Topo, and the town's habit of building coffee into something else: a boutique, a market, a bakery. Here is where to drink it.