Black Bird Saloon in Cerrillos, Legal Tender in Lamy, and NOSA in Ojo Caliente. Beyond the fabulous food at each place, what’s notable is these restaurants are only open either two, three or four days a week. That’s it. I come from the cutthroat restaurant world of San Francisco (having owned a few restaurants there) where it seems like everyone is working 80 hour weeks. So, these lifestyle-first restaurants are a welcome change for the industry.
I did a little sleuthing to understand the origin story of one of these restaurants. I’ve met Patrick Torres at Black Bird numerous times as well as his wife and co-owner Kelly. I don’t know if I’ve ever had better cuisine in a saloon (and amazing local craft beer) and it’s only a 20-minute drive from MEA’s Rising Circle Ranch. Cerrillos is a funky, little mining town that used to be a rowdy, rollicking place with four hotels, twenty-one saloons, five brothels, and several dance halls. Now, it’s a quiet refuge for artists and rebels including Mary Mora who was still serving drinks at Mary’s Bar into her mid-90s. Mary’s is often open just Sunday afternoons with some live music and livelier cats. Here’s a brief video on some of these establishments.
Patrick told me that they’d spent a lot of time in the food service industry, but they wanted to pioneer the idea of a restaurant that fits their lifestyle rather than submitting to the normal grind. So, they decided to open just Thursday late afternoon into the early evening, lunch and dinner on Friday and Saturday and brunch on Sunday. They close down altogether for the winter so they can enjoy traveling.
Many of us can learn from these New Mexico restaurateurs (I certainly can!). How can you consciously curate your professional life so that it serves the goals of your personal life? How can you live a life less ordinary?
My only complaint is there’s nowhere to eat on the other days of the week, so after I gorged last weekend, I fasted all day on Monday while luxuriating in the hot springs at historic Ojo Caliente. Come visit us in the Land of Enchantment!
-Chip