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Coffeehouses - Late Night Haunts |
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Located
one block south of the Plaza and open until 3 AM Monday through
Saturday, the Atomic Grill attracts a cross section of Santa Fe
residents and tourists, especially in the wee hours of the morning.
The restaurant is a popular after-hours spot for people spilling out
of the bars at the 2 AM witching hour; some folks need to sop up the
booze with a meal, others are just plain hungry, and many simply
aren't ready to stop partying
Atomic Grill You can't drink here after 11
PM, but before then you can choose from a selection of up to
96 beers and a half-dozen wines. Or try a hot drink -- a
cappuccino, perhaps, or maybe an eggnog latte during the
holiday season. The arty, warehouse-style restaurant offers
live, mostly acoustic music on summer weekends. The Atomic
Grill is open Monday through Friday from 11 AM to 3 AM,
Saturday from 7 AM to 3 AM and Sunday from 7 AM until
midnight. (See our Dining
link) Aztec Street Coffee
House The Aztec Street Coffee House is
about as close as you can get to an old-fashioned,
European-style cafe. It's one of those increasingly rare
places where you can buy a single cup of coffee, get your
one free refill and spend the rest of the day reading,
writing, composing, consulting, ciphering or contemplating
your navel without pressure to buy more, eat more, drink
more, say more, do more or leave. The minimalist,
unpretentious -- some call it downright funky -- atmosphere
attracts a clientele that runs the gamut from working and
starving artists, musicians, filmmakers and writers to
students, local business people, New Agers, conspiracy
theorists, tub-thumpers, gadflies, barflies or anyone
looking for what many patrons claim is the best cup of
coffee in town. You can even buy the house blend by the
pound. The Aztec also serves a wide variety of food, including
homemade oatmeal with real maple syrup, fresh breakfast
burritos, bagels, scones and pastries (many of them
homemade) starting at 7:30 AM Monday through Friday and 8 AM
on weekends. In the afternoon it's homemade soups, stews,
bruschette (open-faced grilled sandwiches), hummus and
tabbouleh, fresh tamales, hot entrees and daily specials
until closing at 9 PM Sunday through Thursday and 10 PM on
Fridays and Saturdays. This is a place where vegans and meat
eaters can rendezvous without compromising their principles
or their palates. It's also a happy meeting ground for smokers and
nonsmokers, though not necessarily in the same rooms. The
patio, however, is the equivalent of international air space
and is open to both camps. Evenings at the Aztec feature a
Sunday open-mike session called "Open Unplugged"
for music, poetry, performance or any other variation of the
spoken -- or nonspoken -- word. Monday nights bring
classical music, and Thursday is reserved for live acoustic
sounds. The cafe also runs an art show on its adobe walls,
showing the work of local artists and changing the exhibit
monthly. Casa Sena Cantina You're just about to bite into your
almond-crusted salmon while your partner is slicing into
honey-glazed New Mexico pork loin. Suddenly, your waiter
breaks into song. If it's Broadway, it must be Casa Sena
Cantina. No, that's not the number he's singing. It's a
dinner club where the wait staff also entertains -- and we
don't mean by spilling soup in (other) diners' laps.
Adjacent to Casa Sena (see our Dining
link) in peaceful and pretty Sena Plaza, the Cantina is a
dinner club whose wait staff doubles as musical comedy
performers usually after, though sometimes during, your
meal. There are two seatings nightly -- at 5:30 PM and again
at 8 PM. The 5:30 seating is usually a condensed Broadway
musical such as Sunset Boulevard, Phantom of the
Opera, Little Shop of Horrors or Follies,
while the late show is always The Best of Broadway --
a selection of songs from a variety of Broadway shows. The performance begins about an hour after you arrive,
probably around the time you're having dessert and coffee,
and lasts approximately one hour. Prior to the show, piano
music plays in the background as you dine on any of a
variety of innovative New Mexican and Southwestern entrees,
which range in price from $12 to $18 à la carte. There's no
additional charge for the entertainment; it's included with
your dinner. But do leave some extra cash in the tip bowl
for the performers in addition to a gratuity for serving
your dinner -- in view of their talents and effort, it's
more than fair to supplement their nightly income. Casa Sena
Cantina is open seven nights a week, 364 days a year,
closing only on Christmas Day. Walk-ins are welcome, but we
strongly recommend you make reservations, especially during
the summer and on holidays. For Indian Market weekend (see
our Events link), people often book months in advance. Dana's Afterdark The owners of this fairly new
late-night cafe describe their popular establishment as an
"alternative coffeehouse for the uninhibited." To
understand what that means, you need only show up one
evening (but not on Mondays, when it's closed) anywhere
from, say, 10 PM to 4 AM. You may well find yourself playing
Battleship, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, even Chutes and
Ladders next to, or possibly with, gay couples, health
gurus, movie stars, operatic sopranos, prolific authors,
purple-haired and tongue-pierced high school students,
wealthy matrons, willing patrons and -- well, I'm sure we've
left someone out. Dana's is in a quaint, early 20th-century
adobe house in which each parlor has its own distinct
ambiance. The main room is bright and cheerful and features
a glass case displaying such goodies as Snickers pie, Milky
Way mousse pie, Black Forest cake and other rich, gooey
desserts. This room also has a large (and loud) espresso
machine, where Dana's many coffee drinks begin, and more
than 40 varieties of tea that the owners will blend to taste
(yours, not theirs) and suspend in a porous bag on a long
toothpick in cups big enough for a swim. Another room has several couches, a huge coffee table,
the previously alluded to game corner and an 80-year-old
piano that patrons are welcome to play. A third room has low
lighting and distressed Mexican furniture and is a great
place to watch who's coming and going from the cover of
relative darkness. There's a large patio in back, a small
porch in front that is often crowded with smokers, and a
resident dog, Sissy, who likes to investigate but can be
somewhat aloof -- don't take it personally. Located
throughout the cafe are strategically placed works of art,
many of them for sale. The cafe undoubtedly caters to the gay community, but as
you'll note from our description above -- or simply from a
visual sweep of the premises -- the clientele is diverse and
eclectic, drawing night birds of all species. Dana and his
partner, Rody, take pride in serving "comfort
food" including a wide variety of sandwiches (roast
beef, ham or turkey and Swiss cheese, mozzarella and red
bell pepper, for example), Frito pies, soups and other
simple entrees as well as the desserts mentioned above. The
cafe is open in warm weather from sunset to 4 AM and in
cooler weather from 6:30 PM until about 1 AM on Sunday,
Tuesday and Thursday and to 4 AM on Wednesday, Friday and
Saturday. The owners may expand their hours to include
Sunday brunch starting in 1998. Downtown Subscription Though Downtown Subscription is
primarily a daytime establishment, the
coffeehouse/international newsstand stays open an extra hour
and a half or so every other Wednesday evening for poetry
readings sponsored by a Santa Fe-based cultural education
/literary organization called Recursos de Santa Fe. Poets
are chosen based on work they have submitted. Most are
local, though some come from other cities and occasionally
even other states. Readings start at 7 PM and last until
approximately 8:30 PM. You might want to show up early
because the readings get crowded -- sometimes with up to 80
people, many of them sipping cappuccino, hot Mexican mocha
made with ground Ibarra chocolate, tea or any number of
other hot or cold nonalcoholic drinks, perhaps accompanied
by a lime bar, rugelach, Aunt Helen's sour cream coffeecake
or maybe even a sandwich. There is no cover charge for
poetry readings. Downtown Subscription's regular hours are
from 7:30 AM to 7 PM daily. The cafe, which is extremely
popular among locals, sells magazines and newspapers from
around the world with up to 2,500 titles in stock at any one
time. Java Joe's There are two Java Joe's -- they have
the same owners, but their ambiances are as different as day
and night. In fact, it's the nights that set them apart. The
Cerrillos Road location stays open some evenings until 9 PM
-- two hours later than its Rodeo Road sister -- for
open-mike sessions, poetry readings and occasional live
music. Check the calendar in the local papers for details.
Located just south of the intersection at St. Michael's
Drive, behind Austin's Steaks and Saloon at the southern end
of a large strip mall called College Plaza, Java Joe's on
Cerrillos Road is an odd mixture of coffeehouse, coffee
store and seller of handmade clothing and assorted
knickknacks. Somehow, the combination and location work,
probably because it's outside the downtown area and attracts
mostly locals who live, work, shop or attend school nearby.
They can choose from any of four different blends of coffee
daily or a wide variety of black, green and herbal teas.
Java Joe's also offers juices, Italian sodas and soft
drinks, fresh panini sandwiches on focaccia bread and a
selection of homemade muffins, scones, cookies and desserts,
including to-die-for tiramisu. The lighting is conducive to
reading, socializing or simply sitting back and
people-watching through the cafe's glass facade. Java Joe's
on Cerrillos Road opens daily at 7 AM and generally closes
at 7 PM Monday through Thursday and Saturday -- except for
special events (check the newspapers) when it stays open
until 9 PM. On Fridays, the cafe stays open until 9 PM for
open mike. Java Joe's closes Sundays at 5 PM. Tribes Coffee House You might call Tribes Coffee House
the Superman of Santa Fe cafes. By day, it's like
mild-mannered Clark Kent -- a clean, well-lighted and
extremely tame place for downtown workers and tourists to
have lunch or a long, lingering cuppa. Come nighttime, it
dives into a metaphorical phone booth and emerges in tights
and a cape, ready to kick butt with live music ranging from
bluegrass, country, folk and jazz to Celtic, Middle Eastern
(including belly dancing), Native American, reggae and other
ethnic sounds. Situated in a narrow covered walkway between
San Francisco Street and Palace Avenue in downtown Santa Fe,
Tribes is a hidden treasure that even many locals might not
know exists because of its discreet location. But word of
mouth travels quickly in this town, and Tribes is earning a
reputation as a hip and increasingly popular nighttime venue
for an interesting cross-section of Santa Fe -- everyone
from adults looking for an alcohol- and largely smoke-free
place to dance to the under-21 set because it's one of the
few happening night spots in Santa Fe available to them. On nights when there's live entertainment, a $5 cover
charge will get you in the door. The rest of the time, the
price of a cup of coffee, tea, chai -- or a dish of
authentic hummus, falafel or homemade soup -- is your ticket
to a five-minute or five-hour sky-lighted escape from the
world. You may feel a bit exposed in the daytime because of
all the windows, so if you're truly looking to escape, bring
a newspaper to hide behind or wear dark glasses. Tribes is
open 8:30 AM to 6 PM Sunday through Thursday and 8:30 AM to
11 PM Friday and Saturday. |
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