Bye-Bye, Burritos

The Santa Fe Baking Co. website says it all. On an otherwise blank, black page, it says "Under new ownership." And that is all it says.

On SFR’s Tuesday morning visit to the former breakfast institution on Cordova Road, we found a sad message written on every window. "Closed."KSFR’s Radio Café planned for a live broadcast at the restaurant that morning, which hurriedly happened instead from the station's Southside studio. Yet the closure wasn’t really a surprise. The business changed hands at the beginning of 2016, and the new owner Andrew Perkins, a public accountant based in Santa Fe, has received plenty of criticism from customers and employees since. Gone are the feelings of familiarity that existed under the previous owners. “The people at the registers weren’t very nice, usually Eric and his brother would ask you how you were; they would recognize you,” says Solange Pihut, a frequenter of the establishment since 2008.  “I usually call in my order before I get there. ... But [the last time] I called, nobody answered, at all. And then when someone finally picked up, I didn’t recognize the voice, and I thought it was weird. They asked what I wanted, and they weren’t very nice about it.”   Eric Struck, the longtime former owner, said previously that he was bound by a confidentiality agreement in the ownership change. He tells SFR late Tuesday that he wants to acknowledge the community and the support it had for Santa Fe Baking Co.Perkins didn’t reply to a phone message about the closure, and it’s unclear how employees are have fared. In January, some told SFR they had already seen pay cuts, which were promised would not occur.

Santa Fe Reporter