brianna@sfreporter.com
First off, an apology. We were unexpectedly not here for you on the Fourth of July and we just hope you made it through the holiday OK.
Now, let us get to our feelings about diners, for they are many. While heading to the Southside the other day for whatever reason, we began to feel a bit peckish. Thus, we decided to duck into the New York Deli Southside for some brekkie-like comestibles. If you’ve somehow yet to hear, its former sister restaurant downtown on Catron Street—which was, for old-timers, once Bagelmania and is now known as Café Catron—splintered off from the original empire last year and is now operated by the Vanderhider family. And though the Café Catron menu kept some of the original spirit alive with some of the original dishes, we still find ourselves missing the downtown New York Deli every so often.
And as we ate our classic breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and hash browns with an everything bagel on the side (pictured above), our mind wandered back to that age-old question that everybody who ever lived in a city with a for-realsies greasy spoon diner ponders from time to time: Why can’t we get a for-realsies greasy spoon diner around here? Hats off to the New York Deli Southside for its classic items like the aforementioned brekkie plus all kinds of omelettes; egg sandwiches; Benedicts and Blackstones; sammies; salads; bagels; burgers; pancakes; waffles; and so forth, but they close at 3 pm, which is kind of a drag—plus the vibe is sort of chaotic. We don’t mind, though. We’ve worked in restaurants.
So, yeah. We want a diner. We want a diner that’s open 24 hours. Don’t even talk to us about how Denny’s scratches that itch, either, because, grrrrrrl, Denny’s is and always has been the last respite and refuge of the damned. Dang. Naw. No Denny’s. No Carrows or Shoney’s or JB’s or Marie Callender’s. We’re talking about something totally different here. Something more primal—and not a chain.
We’re talking about the kind of pie-laden paradise where the cold case desserts date back to the Peloponnesian War, but you still kind of want to eat ‘em anyway.
We’re talking about the kind of place where some gruff career server who long ago shut down the part of themself that experiences joy or hope greets you with sass-mouth then pours cup after cup of burnt coffee while longing for the sweet kiss of death.
We want a diner where the menu is so massive you wonder how the hell it even came together. Pancakes and also spaghetti and also Greek food and burgers and crepes and steaks? Uh, word.
Teenagers loiter in the parking lot. The streetlight above the entrance flickers like Morse code. Dogs bark in the street. The vestibule gumball machine shoots out tooth-cracking orbs of blue and red and white and green, and they all taste like someone described spearmint to a maker who’d never tasted it in their life.
You can choose from one of two domestic beers if you’re lucky, but they’re probably not cold and it’s likely you arrived drunk anyway. The light fixtures seem like they’re from the 1960s, at least. The tables are some kind of HoJo-core red-orange formica nightmare and are somehow always sticky. Everything runs $10 or under. Truckers line the counter. Willie or Johnny or Dolly plays over the speakers, but one or two clearly blew out years ago and only the left channel is perceptible now; the rest are dying soon.
You can’t smoke inside anymore, but the walls are yellowed just the same and the sickly-sweet smell of tobacco lingers.
Oh. Em. Gee. We just realized we’re going to die some day.
Look, all that stuff we just said aside, it does feel tragic that Santa Fe doesn’t have a non-chain nighttime diner thing available. We concede it’s possible that what we really miss is our misspent youth (although you have no way of knowing our age and readers constantly tell us that the videos we share throw off their concept of our generationally based artistic allegiances). We also concede that Santa Fe has so many quality experiences that online blowhards and restaurant assholes like to call “elevated,” which is nice and lucky but not at all what we want every single time we dine. The nicer spots are all well and good, little buddies, and we appreciate the caliber of dining experience around here like woah. But it doesn’t solve our problem—the one where we can’t get the greasiest potatoes of all time at 1 in the morning without making them ourselves.
As always, we assume that if we feel this way, others do, too. So tell us, dear readers—do you know what we’re talkin’ about? Oh, and as a post-script, that everything bagel at New York Deli Southside was delicious (no need to yell at us, people who’ve been to New York).
Martin Sexton is our enemy (he knows what he did), but this is a jam-a-lam. Why the image is from the short-lived ‘90s sitcom Boogie’s Diner is anyone’s guess.
Also
- Edible New Mexico recently announced the winners of its annual Local Hero Awards which celebrate good...uh...food...stuff around the state. And while we couldn’t possibly care less about the people, places and things popping off outside of Santa Fe, our fair city’s denizens did make the list. For example, Trujillo Farm & Orchard de Nambe (which we’re gonna just count as Santa Fe) placed in the Farm/Ranch category; tapas joint La Boca placed in the restaurant category; Erica Tai of Alkeme placed in the chef category; and commercial kitchen/culinary education and events space The Kitchen Table placed in the innovator: education category. Congrats to all you crazy, cuckoo winners.
- Speaking of La Boca, we were saddened to hear owner/chef James Campbell Caruso recently shuttered his La Boca Bodega corner grocery/lunch spot/sandwich counter on Marcy Street. Caruso tells SFR that some of the products he was carrying had become harder to come by, and that with business positively blowing up at La Boca, he needed to realign his focus. Don’t fret, tapas fans, La Boca and its offshoot Taberna around back are both still alive and well.
- Rest in power, chef Estevan Garcia. The Café San Estevan/Estevan Restaurant owner recently died after years in the foodservice game. And while we’d love to let you know any details, including how old Garcia was, we’ve been unable to locate an obituary or any other information. In fact, we only heard the news because we know a few people who’d worked for Garcia in the past. What we do know is that Garcia was a one-time Franciscan friar who made waves in the culinary community for decades. His carne adovada ravioli was legendary, and former workers with whom we spoke described a passionate man and talented chef who loved sharing food with the world. For some in Santa Fe, this is surely the end of an era. Garcia will be missed. The Santa Fe Farmers’ Market Institute website has a little bio page about Garcia if you’re at all interested.
- We would like to remind everyone that REMIX Audio Bar has moved from Marcy Street to Guadalupe Street—the same location that once housed the Fire & Hops gastropub or, if you’re a certain type of person and a certain type of age, the coffee shop known as Dana’s After Dark. Straight up? new REMIX is awesome, too, from the updated decor and continued emphasis on DJ culture (yes, they do classes) to the killer coffee menu and ramen options co-designed by former Fire & Hops chef/current La Lecheria ice cream shop owner Joel Coleman. Also, we’d like to tell y’all a little story about REMIX owners Justin Ray and Julie Grace: Right at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, just before lockdowns, someone at SFR took to social media to bemoan how hard it was to work without easy access to coffee shops. Without a word, Ray and Grace showed up to the former SFR offices on Marcy Street with a loaner coffee setup, plus about a dozen pre-packed ground coffee filters with which the staff of your favorite little alt.weekly finally had the energy to do news and art stuff. It was a kind gesture and really accentuated what kind of people are behind REMIX. This is not a paid post even at all, we’re just telling you that you should visit ASAP. They’re good people. The best.
- It almost seems like there’s something strange afoot on Marcy Street as much-ballyhooed tea shop Artful Tea has also left the street behind for a new location at 901 W San Mateo Road. If you’re having trouble visualizing that, it’s over there near Santa Fe Stone, just sort of by Back Road Pizza. Presumably, it’s also easier to park on San Mateo than it is downtown.
- Railyard-based As Above So Below Distillery has a new high-rye bourbon for all y’all to try out, and we must admit it sounds goooooooooooooood. Head distiller Caley Shoemaker (whom SFR wrote about back when the distillery was called Altar) has the goods, trust us, and her new Astrologist whiskey is already turning heads, at least according to a few of our more...shall we say imbibe-y buds. Limited to just over 1,300 bottles (though who knows how many will be left by the time you read this or what the future holds), the new concoction spent six years in French oak casks—and that was after four years in American oak casks, baby. OHHHH! The fake-out! You thought it was only six, but it’s 10 years! TEN YEARS IN CASKS, BABY! Anyway, we’re told we can expect hints of marzipan and hazelnut, maybe even a little dulce de leche. In other words? You’re a chump if you add Coke to this bad boy. Sip it. Sip it good (sung Devo style).
- While we’re talkin’ about booze and casks and food and such, a number of New Mexico spots were recently honored in Wine Spectator’s 2024 Restaurant Awards, so let’s give a hearty “Huzzah!” to Santa Fe’s distinguished fooderies, including Sazón, Geronimo, The Compound, Luminaria (hey, we just had brunch there!), TerraCotta Wine Bistro, Sassella, The Bull Ring and the Anasazi Restaurant. And though we could spend the rest of our day linking those places like some sort of not-giving-up linking nerd, we can just link the full list of New Mexico winners riiiiiiigggggggggghhhhhhhhhht HERE.
- Looks like George RR Martin is finally gearing up to open his Milk of the Poppy bar in the Railyard, just behind his Jean Cocteau Cinema theater. While Martin has yet to announce a date, a new site dubbed milkofthepoppybar.com has appeared online and you can go there to get on the mailing list for updates and such.
- Over at Tomasita’s, the venerable New Mexican eatery turns 50 this year, and that’s pretty good! Heck, SFR also turned 50 this year and thus spoke with Tomasita’s owner George Gundrey for a recent cover story featuring locals’ thoughts on what Santa Fe might be like in 2074. “I think people will still be eating that red and green chile,” Gundrey said. “I think they’re still going to be eating a delicious chicken enchilada in the Railyard, because it’s such an important part of our culture.” Amen, buddy.
Randy Travis has a dish named for him at Tomasita’s (true story) and a song about sopaipillas in his heart.
More Tidbits
- As we’ve been saying since its debut season, everyone should watch that show The Bear. Not only does it highlight a lesser-seen side of the restaurant industry (namely, the people who go through hell to work in ‘em), it has quite the cast, including Shameless alum Jeremy Allen White, brilliant up-and-comer Ayo Edebiri, the timeless Oliver Platt, the skillful Abby Elliott, the talented Ebon Moss-Bachrach and so many one-offs, special guests and on and on. Even better? It gives folks a glimpse into the absolute madness of people who purposefully choose food service work, and it’s often riveting in its soaps-ish drama and high-anxiety pacing. Still, a piece from Eater-dot-com’s Amy McCarthy posits that while the critical darling from creator/writer Christopher Storer started strong, it’s beginning to drop the ball in its third season. In the piece, McCarthy dives into the current season’s cameos from problematic high-profile chefs like Thomas Keller and René Redzepi, both of whom have faced scrutiny for toxic behavior (as you can read about here and here). In short, McCarthy writes that while The Bear might have set out to examine the absolutely bonkers world of restaurant work and the many traumatic machinations within it, Storer and crew seem to be losing the thread. Our take? Bully chefs and screaming chefs and so-called beautiful geniuses with short fuses from any industry can sod off forever, and it is indeed kind of strange to platform these guys as God-like beings. Read the McCarthy piece. See what you think. Let us know. Or don’t—we’re not your mom (as far as you know).
- Oh good—Heinz just unleashed a sauce made up of all its 14 other sauces on the people of the UK. Literally called Every Sauce, the newest nightmare’s UK-only existence makes at least a little sense since those UK people love them some Heinz beans. As for the validity of its existence? Wethinks Heinz’ honchos are drunk with power and must be stopped. We also think “wethinks” should catch on and become a staple of the language like “cromulent” and “embiggens” and “freeven,” the last of which being a term of our own creation usable when something is “free, even.” Here, we’ll use it in a sentence: “Woah, thanks for sharing your pizza, brah, do i owe you anything, or is it freeven?”
- Lastly in not-from-around-here news, this time in Japan, Japanese Pizza Hut locations are now serving up a new dish that is essentially grilled cheese ramen. Say less, Japanese Pizza Huts, and send that shizzle over this way. We’ll eat it. We’ll eat it straight to hell! Between this and the way Japan gets all the best KitKat varieties, we don’t know why we don’t just pack it all up and head on over there. Really, though, maybe we’re just tired of the same old American KitKat nonsense. Le sigh.
A totally scientific breakdown of The Fork’s correspondence
In this week’s print edition of SFR, a rather disappointing jaunt to El Nido in Tesuque.
Number of Letters Received: 25
*And that’s actually for two weeks because we took off the Fourth, which suggests to us that y’all didn’t even miss us or notice we were gone. Reading The Fork is freeven, little buddies.
Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader):
“French toast batter has eggs in it. Always. Without eggs, it would just be mushy bread.”
*You win this round, Stephanie C., but know that we knew that when we described eating full-ass eggs rather than French toast at Luminaria—and that the egg of that French toast batter just wouldn’t have been enough.
Actually Helpful Tip(s):
“I thought I’d share my Norteno ex M-I-L’s superstition. She believed you needed to sprinkle garlic salt (yes from the Lawrey’s sprinkle jar you buy on the spice aisle, NOT fresh garlic and salt) on the roasted chile before you eat it, otherwise it would upset your stomach. It’s how I have eaten chile for decades when I cook with it at home. And I swear if I forget to use it, my GI system reminds me!”
*Reader Darla helping us get back into the chile game with a little help from her ex-mother in law—and we are grateful!
Our kingdom for a diner,
The Fork
