For dinner this evening, I chose a Green chili burger at The Plaza Café in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Founded in 1905, or earlier if you count its predecessor in the same spot, the Plaza Café still delivers wonderful food to its customers.
Tonight that customer was me.
When I enter the door, I was already excited about going to this nostalgic diner—but was very impressed by the wait staff who treated me with care. Many times when I’m traveling, I get kind of put in a corner and forgotten, but tonight the staff treated me very well and continually checked up on me and made sure I was happy.
The restaurant is much a diner, with a diner type menu. I saw that they ever served meat loaf—green chili meat loaf. I wasn’t in mood tonight—but that sounds delicious!
I chose the Green Chili Burger with fries. The Green Chili Burger is something that I have grown to love living in El Paso and close to New Mexico. It is certainly a New Mexico recipe, but it truly spices up the normal hamburger. The Plaza Café cooked a wonderful Green Chili Burger—one that I won’t forget for a long time.
The atmosphere of the diner was very comforting. There was lots of hustle and bustle, but not in an annoying way. There was noise from people talking and laughing. You could hear the plates moving and hitting together. Under all of that you could hear some music in the background. Many newer restaurants and chains turn the music up so loud that you can’t hear anything—it was a nice change to be able to simply enjoy the sounds of life.
While I enjoyed my burger and the atmosphere, I wondered about what kept this diner in business for all of those years. I wonder what kept him alive during the hard years. There was a time in American culture, where the main streets sat empty and the businesses moved out to the newer buildings and malls. This was the same time that theaters were being built with multiple screens and the downtown theaters were closing. Many times, cheaper stores would fill the vacancies of the ones that moved out. Some stores simply faded away.
I don’t know if that was true for Santa Fe, but I expect that it was. But, as Santa Fe found its niche with a very vibrant arts community, The Plaza Café now is a center piece of the culture that surrounds the downtown area.
The Plaza Cafe is located at 54 Lincoln Avenue on the Historic Santa Fe Plaza in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico.
(For a nice history of The Plaza Café; please take a look at a post written on the Santa Fe Selection blog.)