Karla’s Kitchen serves goodies

Dolores now has a place to get fresh-made doughnuts and much more.

Karla Haley quietly opened Karla’s Kitchen and Bakery Tuesday east of town in the old sportsman’s building and, among other things, her specialty is homemade doughnuts.

“We are making our own doughnuts,” Haley said.

In addition, Haley will make pies, cookies, turnovers and bread pudding, just to name a few.

For breakfast, patrons can enjoy breakfast burritos, breakfast sandwiches and scrambled egg dishes.

“And we will always have a daily breakfast and lunch special,” Haley said.

For lunch, you can enjoy a grilled cheese sandwich and wraps. On March 8 the lunch special was an eastern chalupa, a flat corn tortilla spread with curried lentils and topped with lettuce.

Haley and Sylvia Smith, co-owner, were busy preparing lunch on March 8.

Haley said, while rolling out dough for turnovers, that because the kitchen opens at 6 a.m., workers who drive to Telluride can stop in and get sack lunches and their thermos filled with soup or local-roasted coffee.

“It’s down home cooking with reasonable prices,” she said.

Haley said her menu items will be local and fresh.

Smith has 25 years of cooking experience. She ran a wild game and seafood restaurant in Breckenridge and was the executive chef at a Breckenridge brewery. She was also the executive chef at a wild game restaurant called The Brier Rose. Smith also worked as a private chef at Mesa Verde, where she prepared meals out in the field for archaeologists.

Smith said she is looking forward to the new challenge of opening a restaurant with Haley in Dolores.

“It’s an open kitchen, so people can see us work and they can see that it’s clean,” Smith said.

You may remember Haley from the bakery just next door to it’s current location, but Haley said this time, she is in charge and can make what she wants. In addition, customers can walk into the kitchen and sit at a table to enjoy their meals, something that couldn’t be done at the bakery.

Haley was a chef for Ducks Unlimited and said she has always loved to cook.

“We are doing something we love,” she said.