SFR celebrated its 50th anniversary on June 26 of this year, and spent some time in the newsroom revisiting that very first edition.
Laying our ink-stained mitts on the first-ever Best of Santa Fe edition proved a bit more elusive. Some of us held the long-standing conviction that we had actually worked on that very first BOSF issue as an intern (ahem), but learned—after thumbing through the bound volumes we house in our office—we’d been off by a year.
Our first Best of Santa Fe edition appeared on Oct. 10, 1990. Its introduction read: “In a city abundant in wonderful restaurants, spectacular views, interesting people and fun places, you’ve helped us choose the tastiest and the toniest, the finest and the frilliest, the great and the goofiest, the best and the worst.”
Flash forward 34 years and many of those sentiments remain (minus the alliteration). SFR’s readers choose the nominees and the winners in this annual competition—we’re just along for the ride. Without question, the ballot has grown bigger over the decades, and we’ve weeded out the “worst” designations (these were historically fairly benign; in year one, jam and jelly won for the “worst use for green chile”). We have added weed—legal weed at that—to the ballot, a prospect that would have seemed far-fetched back in this competition’s early days.
Those early days also included all-night manual ballot counting, and occasional handwriting analysis. Needless to say, the online automatic voting and judging is a big improvement (and far less fallible).
But the bottom line remains the same: Santa Fe has more superlative places and people per capita than anywhere else in the US, and we’ve got the receipts to prove it.
Come celebrate with SFR, the 2024 BOSF winners and fellow voters at this year’s annual party featuring games, food, music and more, 5 to 9 pm, Aug. 2 in the Railyard, concurrent with Lensic 360′s Santa Fe Salutes: Taylor concert. We’ll be selling T-shirts featuring this year’s cover artist Jeffrey Pitt at our booth—and throwing some to the crowd from the stage.
Have an idea for next year’s ballot? Send ‘em to editor@sfreporter.com
—Julia Goldberg
Arts & Entertainment: From galleries to bands to theater to dance
Business: Accountants and movers and credit unions, oh my!
Cannabis: Everything green under the sun
Food & Drink: The delicious winners await…
Health and Personal Services: From waxing to yoga to ear infections
Home: Everything for and about the abode
Kids: Games, education, entertainment and more
Local Living: From trails to neighborhoods and everything in between
Pets: Grooming, loving, help—all about animals
Shopping: Local consumers choose their faves
