For years, a conversation about Flying Horse started and ended at the Clubhouse gate. The Weiskopf course, The Steakhouse, the Lodge — that was the neighborhood's front door and, for many residents, its whole address book. That is no longer true.
The quieter story on the north end of Colorado Springs is that the ground around Flying Horse has been filling in faster than the Club itself has been changing. A new grocery anchor, a reworked flagship restaurant, a second championship course ten minutes up the road, and a 65-acre mixed-use plan on the drawing board have shifted the community's center of gravity outward. If you live here, this is a guide to what has actually opened, what's worth a Tuesday-night reservation, and what's still coming.
The Clubhouse, quietly reset
The most visible change inside the gates is at the Clubhouse dining room itself. What was La Fortezza has been reintroduced as Fortezza Italiana, a contemporary Italian-inspired restaurant serving thoughtfully prepared dishes and a curated wine list in a warm, stylish setting. It is open to the public, Resort Guests, and Flying Horse Club Members for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and daily happy hour, which matters for residents who don't hold a membership but want a weekday breakfast within a five-minute drive of home. Reservations aren't required, but they are available through OpenTable or by calling the host stand at (719) 487-2674.
The Steakhouse next door has kept collecting hardware. It is a recipient of the 2025 and 2026 DiRōNA Award and the 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 Best of Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator, and the wine program that earned it is not small: 425 selections and an inventory of 1,520 bottles, with strengths in California, France and Italy, and a $10 corkage fee. That last detail is the useful one. If you have a bottle from a Colorado wine trip you have been meaning to open, this is a rare local room where the corkage is reasonable and the glassware matches the effort.
A practical note that catches residents off guard: attire is Colorado Country Club Casual, and the room asks guests to refrain from athletic wear or pool attire. Worth remembering if you are walking over from the Athletic Club side.
The corner that redrew your errands
The bigger shift for daily life happened outside the gates, at the intersection of North Gate Boulevard and Highway 83. The Flying Horse King Soopers held its ribbon cutting on Wednesday, January 22, and opened at 9 a.m. that day, with a 122,000-square-foot marketplace featuring a Starbucks, a pharmacy, pickup services, and a fuel center. The address is 2731 North Gate Boulevard, open daily from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., seven days a week.
For a neighborhood that used to route most of its grocery trips down to Briargate Parkway or over to InterQuest, a 17-hour, seven-day-a-week marketplace at the community's front door is a real change. Combine it with the existing Shoppes at Flying Horse east of I-25 at North Gate Blvd and Hwy 83, offering boutique shopping, dining, an art gallery, custom framing, and options ranging from artisanal ice cream to fine wine tastings, and the corner starts to function like a small town center rather than a strip.
The reason it keeps attracting operators is written into the trade-area math. The developer of the grocery-anchored center reports the intersection sees more than 30,000 vehicles per day, with a five-mile trade area of roughly 70,000 residents and an average household income exceeding $150,000 per year. Retail follows numbers like that, and the retail is following.
If you moved to Flying Horse before 2025, your default answer to "where should we grab something quick?" was probably a drive. That default is being rewritten a mile at a time.
Two courses, two entirely different Saturdays
Residents who golf already know the Weiskopf course. What is less internalized is how different the second course feels — and how close it is. Flying Horse North, the 18-hole Phil Smith design, is nestled in the trees of the Black Forest just 10 minutes north of The Club, at 15268 Allen Ranch Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80908.
The two experiences are not interchangeable. The Main course is a walk out your back door. Flying Horse North winds through the forest and out into the prairie with open, firm greens and views of the Front Range, presenting a variety of uniqueness from hole to hole. Season matters: Colorado golf season runs May through October, and there is no off-season available at Flying Horse North. Tee times at North are reserved for Resort guests and members.
For non-golfing residents, the same corridor is worth knowing about for a different reason. The drive up Highway 83 to the Black Forest edge is one of the closest ways to trade suburbia for tree canopy without leaving the ZIP code.
What's still coming, and why it matters
The plan that will most reshape daily life here has not opened yet. Downtown Flying Horse is a 65-acre mixed-use site in northern Colorado Springs, integrating retail and dining with office, multiple residential types, and open space, master-planned by LandDesign for Stillwater Capital with the goal of establishing the city's first experiential destination. The project is anchored by a food and beverage experience and includes a large office component along with multi-family and single-family attached and detached residential.
Two things are worth flagging without overstating them. First, the scale. A 65-acre district is not a strip center; it is closer in footprint to a small downtown, and it will sit on a corridor that already moves 30,000-plus vehicles a day. Second, the composition. Retail-plus-office-plus-residential is a different pattern than the pure-rooftop growth that has defined most of the north end for two decades. Whether it delivers on the "experiential" description will depend on tenants that have not been announced. Residents who care about traffic patterns, sightlines, or resale should watch this one closely as filings become public.
Quick reference: who is open to whom
Not every amenity here works the same way. This is the piece newcomers most often get wrong.
| Place | Access | Useful detail |
|---|---|---|
| Fortezza Italiana | Public, guests, and members | Breakfast through dinner and daily happy hour; reservations optional |
| The Steakhouse at Flying Horse | Public, guests, and members | Country Club Casual attire; $10 corkage |
| Athletic Grill | Public, guests, and members | Daily 7 a.m.–10 p.m.; Sunday brunch 8 a.m.–1 p.m. |
| The Pavilion (on course) | Resort guests and members | Overlooks the Weiskopf course |
| Flying Horse North tee times | Resort guests and members | Season May–October |
| Athletic Club & Spa | Members and Signature Golf members | Indoor red-clay tennis, outdoor pickleball, heated lap pool |
| Shoppes at Flying Horse | Public | Boutiques, dining, gallery |
| Flying Horse King Soopers | Public | 6 a.m.–11 p.m. daily |
The Steakhouse operator's own description of dining is worth borrowing verbatim, because it captures the ceiling of what public access here can look like: seven unique restaurants set against sweeping mountain and golf course views, several of which a non-member can book any night of the week.
A resident's actual weekend, mapped
Rather than list everything, here is how the pieces above fit into a plausible Saturday for someone who already lives inside the community.
- Morning. Coffee and eggs at Fortezza Italiana before the Clubhouse fills up, or a Starbucks run at the North Gate King Soopers on the way to a soccer field.
- Midday. A loop through Barefoot Park, known for its large playground, sports fields, splash pad, picnic areas, and walking trails, then errands at the Shoppes at Flying Horse for framing, a gift, or an ice cream stop.
- Afternoon. A tee time on the Weiskopf course at home, or a ten-minute drive to Flying Horse North for a completely different round in the pines.
- Evening. The Steakhouse with a bottle from home under the $10 corkage, or a lower-key dinner and happy hour at Fortezza. Reserve through OpenTable earlier in the week, particularly during peak golf season.
Two years ago that itinerary would have required leaving the north end at least twice. It no longer does.
The through line
The pattern in all of this is not a single opening. It is a shift in what "living in Flying Horse" means at the ground level. The Club is still the anchor, and the awards on the Steakhouse wall are not decorative. What has changed is the density of everything around it: a grocery anchor at the front gate, a second championship course a short drive north, a retail corner that keeps adding tenants, and a mixed-use district on 65 acres still to come. For residents, the practical result is fewer trips out, more choices at home, and a neighborhood that is starting to behave like a self-contained district instead of a subdivision attached to one clubhouse.
If you are weighing what your home is worth in that changing context, or considering how the corridor's growth may affect a future move, the team at Behr and Behr Team can walk you through what the current market says about Flying Horse and the surrounding Pikes Peak neighborhoods. Request a Free Home Valuation when you are ready.
