Manno’s is not your typical golf course fare — it’s better. Photo and text by Kristen Browning-Blas.

After playing 18 holes on a city course, a golfer is usually so hungry that a premade sandwich and chips is good enough. But at Collindale, a public course in Fort Collins, a famished foursome can dine on locally grazed beef, freshly made salads with house-made dressings, and big, juicy burgers on Kaiser rolls accompanied by piles of thin-cut, crispy fries.

When expectations are low, it’s easy to be wowed, but Manno’s delivers consistently fresh, carefully prepared, high-quality ingredients at prices well under similar restaurant menus in the area. Right on Horsetooth Road, Manno’s serves not only golfers — like the course, it is open to the public — for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The stone clubhouse/restaurant was built five years ago, and feels like a guy decorated it — a mounted moose head over a large fireplace, golf paraphernalia on the walls, plenty of TVs, beer signs over the long bar (with local microbrews on tap), you get the idea. It’s completely unpretentious and comfortable. A patio faces south toward the golf course, and you can hear live jazz Wednesday and acoustic guitar Thursday evening (no cover).

“We try to serve country-club-quality food without country-club prices,” says chef Jason Brownhill. “We do as much fresh as we can and cut down on pre-processing as much as possible.”

After a taste test of sirloins, Brownhill, who was not a big red- meat eater, discovered the difference between an assembly-line steak and one from Front Range Natural Meats, a Wellington- based supplier of hormone-free, open-range black Angus beef.

“It was so remarkable, the difference in taste,” says Brownhill.

That difference keeps customers coming back, too. (Or could it be the 11 a.m.-to-6 p.m. happy hour?)

For those who don’t eat beef, the Manno’s menu offers a ginger chicken salad with grilled chicken breast, toasted almonds and red peppers on a bed of not-just-out-of-the-bag mixed greens, dressed with not too much and not-too-sweet ginger vinaigrette.

The chicken breast on the Cobb was warm from the grill, and the salad had a perfect balance of blue cheese crumbles, bacon pieces and avocado chunks.

The Caesar is one of the best in town crisp romaine dressed in a light, housemade garlic-olive-oil-anchovy emulsion, with large croutons that definitely did not come out of a box.

Even the sauteed veggies that came with my son’s ribs (a little spicy for the 12-year-old palate) were nicely seasoned and crisp-tender — no mushy broccoli or flaccid green beans here.

“I don’t get too strict about presentation,” Brownhill says. “I just say to the cooks, ‘Would you serve it to your mom? Or your girlfriend?’ ”

– MANNO’S GRILLE AT COLLINDALE –

American breakfast, lunch and dinner. 6:30 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. 1441 E. Horsetooth Road, Fort Collins, 970-223-2478.

– Kristen Browning-Blas