SantaFe.com

You know the refrain, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way?” Well out here in the East Mountains, it’s more like, “Where there’s a need, there’s a way.”

Five years ago, Jay Wulf and his wife, Barb Hanlon Wulf, definitely had a need. A couple of them, in fact. As parents of two young boys, a move to a new neighborhood was now in order.

“We’d been coming up to the East Mountains for years to hike, bike, and ski,” says Jay. “So when we came to the point in our lives where we were looking at school districts and for someplace affordable with privacy and land, this was the perfect fit.”

Monday, June 9, 2008
by Rena Distasio and Jennah Ward (Photographer) • localflavor magazine

I like the Tune-Up Café. This new restaurant is simple and unpretentious, friendly and inviting. Tune-Up Café features a menu that fits the cozy space, a small but delicious assortment of American favorites, New Mexican choices and a few Salvadoran touches. It has a stay-and-sit-a-spell ambiance.

The space, a few blocks off St. Francis Drive near St. Anne’s Church, is the former longtime home of Dave’s Not Here. The new owners, a husband and wife with restaurant experience, spruced up the space with some cleaning, fresh paint and a touch of remodeling. (This is not only a...

Friday, May 30, 2008
by Anne Hillerman • Journal Santa Fe

Joey the English bulldog is watching and waiting. He’s supposed to stay in the third floor office above the Coyote Café, so most of the time he’s shooed out if he tries to get on the “backstage” elevator, but he has also learned that there are two bussers whom he can intimidate into letting him ride. Ah! And there one is now.

A quick waddle, and he’s on the lift. When it stops at the second floor, he can unobtrusively sidle into the café …

“Joey!”

Drat. His Master’s Voice. Chef/owner Eric DiStefano has caught him again.

“You just get right back on that elevator, mister, and go on back up.”

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe

It hasn't been a good week for Willem Malten, owner of Santa Fe's Cloud Cliff Bakery and Cafe.

Malten announced over the weekend that Cloud Cliff will close after 25 years in business. And Tuesday morning, Malten arrived at his bakery-restaurant to find that every single piece of patio furniture had been stolen. That's about 30 chairs and four tables. A Buddha statue also was taken.

It was the third time Cloud Cliff was hit by thieves in the past few months.

Malten, who has said he's shutting down the Cloud Cliff because of soaring wheat prices and increased personnel costs from Santa Fe's...

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
by Vic Vela • Journal Santa Fe

The owner of Cloud Cliff Bakery and Cafe says Santa Fe's living wage law, coupled with soaring wheat prices, has forced him to close.

A Santa Fe institution for a quarter century, Cloud Cliff will close its doors Sunday with a farewell brunch for employees, Willem Malten told the Journal last week.

Malten said Santa Fe's minimum wage law— now set at $9.50 an hour— has made Cloud Cliff's wholesale bread business less competitive around New Mexico and eroded his profit margin.

"I have not been able to pay the rent here for over a year," Malten, 52, said.

The loss of Cloud Cliff is likely to...

Sunday, April 27, 2008
by Raam Wong • Journal Santa Fe

On a recent sweltering midsummer’s afternoon, midweek, closer to dinner time than lunch, Santa Fe’s newest espresso joint, Ecco, is hoppin.’ And, although the bright, welcoming space is pumping out an intoxicating distillation of black caffeinated aromas, it isn’t just the java that’s packing ‘em in. The clientele is a widely varied crowd, from mothers with small children and whole families to tourist couples and packs of savvy teenagers, each holding a dish of what looks like ice cream. But it’s not.

It’s the low-fat gourmet Italian alternative, called gelato (meaning “frozen”) and,...

Monday, August 1, 2005
by Gail Snyder • localflavor magazine