Sadly, the time is right to close the bite.
The Santa Fe Bite, that is.
John Eckre, co-owner with his wife, Bonnie Eckre, said the iconic maker of green chile cheeseburgers — a City Different staple since the early 1950s — will shut down Oct. 26.
“Bonnie and I have realized it’s time for us to not be in the restaurant business anymore,” John Eckre said Wednesday, his 65th birthday.
The double shifts behind the counter and at the grill have taken their toll, he said, adding the couple have not had a vacation together in 20 years.
“It’s a little bit more demanding than we want,” Eckre said.
Plus, he said, the lease on the restaurant site, located inside Garrett’s Desert Inn at Old Santa Fe Trail and East Alameda Street, is up and the rent will increase if they stay.
The Santa Fe Bite has occupied the hotel corner facing Old Santa Fe Trail since August 2013, when the Eckres moved their operation from its original location along Old Las Vegas Highway. The Eckres leased the restaurant there, the Bobcat Bite, for 13 years before the property owner, Mitzi Panzer, died and they lost their lease. Panzer opened the Bobcat Bite in 1953, according to The New Mexican.
Bonnie Eckre, who’s now 60, had worked at the Bobcat Bite for 10 years when its then-owners offered to sell her the business, her husband said. Bonnie Eckre pitched the idea to John, her new husband and a building contractor, and they became full-fledged restaurateurs.
The move to a bigger space at Garrett’s allowed them to expand their hours, hire more employees and offer a wider menu. John Eckre said Wednesday, the restaurant employs 35 people.
“For years, I said I’d like to run a real restaurant,” he said. “Be careful what you wish for.”
The Eckres sank their savings into the place and borrowed funds, too, but they made it all back and then some in the end. When the restaurant closes, they’ll focus on running an Airbnb in a log home on their property between Pecos and Glorieta, John Eckre said.
“I don’t believe in retirement,” he said.
The Bobcat Bite and then the Santa Fe Bite enjoyed a reputation for champion green chile cheeseburgers. Long waits at the Bobcat, where patrons signed onto a waiting list at the door, were the order of the day.
Eckre said the secret to top-notch burgers is threefold.
No. 1, Bite burgers are cooked on a cast iron grill. After the Eckres moved to Garrett’s, John Eckre built a replacement grill by welding commercial-grade cast iron onto an ordinary stainless-steel flattop grill, the surface of which he ground away. In service now three years, it’s well-seasoned, he said.
No. 2, the Eckres use only boneless beef chuck or sirloin freshly ground every day in Moriarty, from cattle raised in Clovis.
Finally, they land that beef patty on a fresh brioche bun baked by Fano Bread Co. of Albuquerque.
The hotel property in which the Santa Fe Bite is located belongs to the State Land Office, which is situated just across Old Santa Fe Trail. But the hotel lease on Sept. 1 passed to a local hoteliers group, 311 Old Santa Fe LLC.
That group, which includes former Santa Fe Fire Department Chief Barbara Salas, submitted the winning bid in February to lease and operate the inn. The 311 group, which also runs three motels in the city — Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, and Econo Lodge Inn and Suites — pitched a plan that generates $12.03 million over the 20-year lease term. The hotel revenue goes to the University of New Mexico.
Salas and her partners also proposed a thorough, yearlong, $3 million makeover of the 63-year-old inn.
Salas said she was disappointed the Eckres decided to close the Santa Fe Bite. The 311 group offered to keep the rent at its current rate with increases years away, she said, but the Eckres were clear that they were at the end of their restaurant careers.
“Basically, they said they’d been in the business for 30 years and were not interested in increasing their business,” she said.
Salas said she and her partners expect to start renovating the hotel as soon as they clear the city Historic Districts Review Board and acquire building permits.
“They’re really going to tune it up,” John Eckre said. “It’s a great plan to make it awesome. It’s very ambitious.”
If he has any regrets about leaving the business, it’s for the employees and loyal customers the restaurant will leave behind, Eckre said.
However, the change will do him and his wife some good, he said.
“We might have time on our hands,” Eckre said, “and that might be a whole new thing.”
