Courtesy Robert McCormick
Some might know Robert McCormick as the guy behind the short-lived but much ballyhooed Cuba Fe eatery that flared up a few years back—then sadly closed. Others know him as a multi-faceted musician who plays with acts like Golden General and Sunbender. To many, he’s the flan guy. In this instance, we’re talking to McCormick as the founder-facilitator of the Santa Fe Foodies Facebook group and its offshoot website, santafefoodiesnm.com. A cornucopia of info for and by local restaurant-lovers, cooks and various other gourmands and drinks aficionados, the site has grown to include reviews, recipes and more, while the social media group adds new members daily and generates some of the most robust food debates in Santa Fe. We like food, too, so we gave McCormick a call.
Have the Facebook group and site become something you weren’t expecting?
So, I used to own [the restaurant] Cuba Fe, and the reason I started the group was because none of the foodie groups on social media were allowing me to promote the restaurant. Some were just interested in home stuff, posting food cooked in our homes and not at businesses, and some [pages] on social media wanted to charge businesses to promote, which is fine, that’s their business model, but I don’t want to have to pay to promote on social media. So I thought, ‘I’m just going to start a group and have a very active atmosphere, and also small businesses can have a place to promote so people can talk about all the general and eclectic food topics they want.’
That’s how the whole thing started, and as a web designer and having done social media for over 15 years, I thought it would be interesting if it turned into something, and here we are. I’m just letting it grow organically. It has more than doubled in the last year...It’s growing, and it’s exponentially growing.
You’re starting to feature original content on the website with restaurant reviews and a drinks column called Santa Fe Sips. Outside of the connectivity factor, are you hopeful for santafefoodiesnm.com to become more of an editorial kind of thing, and if so, will it remain a local-focused thing?
I will let nature take its course. Just as the group has grown, whatever it tells me it wants to be—as long as it fits into my personal standards of what I think is important—I’ll listen to it. Another reason I think the group is getting popular is that I’m not trying to control it. Of course, I have to do a certain level of policing to keep the toxic psychos out and the people who don’t respect other people’s emotions and feelings, but I’m kind of letting it go.
I’m just watching the group, watching what people are talking about. So Matt Mathai [who writes Santa Fe Sips] is always posting drink photos and people are always liking them, let’s try to turn it into a blog. It’s all an experiment. I’m following what people are talking about and letting it guide me into developing the whole concept of something that’s interesting for people—things that are interesting and that will give a positive impact to the local food culture. Culture is of primary importance to me in developing this group and having something that maintains our food culture.
Has facilitating the site and group changed your own tastes? Are you more open to visiting places you’ve never been or eating foods you never thought you’d try?
The group is very much igniting my interests and deepening my interest for food in general, especially local restaurants. I’m trying different places more. Chile, for example—I’ve been living here for 11 years, and the group has really ignited my respect for chile. I’m also learning on a different level to have a much higher respect for restaurants and what they go through. For example, a topic that was in my head yesterday was consistency. One of the big things I’ve learned is that consistency is a big challenge for restaurants, and I don’t think there’s one that exists that is always consistent. People have to understand that and they’re so critical in general and on social media, and that’s something I’d like to keep in mind on an eating experience. But people love to be so harsh sometimes. Hopefully the group will help nurture people having more of an understanding of food businesses. We’re all humans. I’ve been an artist all my life, and I see the value in art and culture. I see what art and culture does for society...and Santa Fe has one of the highest concentrations of artists per capita of any city in the US, and I want to do what I can do to help maintain that. I stumbled onto something that works.
