Caffe Greco — Restaurant in Santa Fe

Stopped by Caffe Greco on Canyon road on Wednesday to enjoy an outdoor meal on one the city different's most visited roads. Caffe Greco as I've always remembered it, has offered New Mexican and general American fan fare food. When I arrived last week, I was welcomed to seat myself anywhere I liked. I opted for the outdoor patio. Mainly because the live acoustic music that the Caffe often features outdoors is both relaxing and enhances the atmosphere. Once I was handed my menu I scanned through it and eventually decided on the beef chalupas. The overall menu offerings are a little pricy. Which is common place for most downtown restaurants in Santa Fe (most items are between 12 and 15 dollars). The beef chalupas are no exception, but are one of the more economic choices available on the menu. When they arrived I was initially taken back by the portion size. Though I do not frequent the caffe regularly. I could swear that the portion size of this particular dish was once larger. Although delicious and up to the New Mexican standard you would expect from a restaurant on west canyon road. I would not recommend ordering if in looking to truly quell your hunger. In fact, they could almost serve as a moderately sized appetizer. Despite this, Caffe Greco continues to serve as a well established locally owned Santa Fe restaurant. Yes, menu items are a little expensive and some dishes could stand to increase their portion size(s). However, the restaurant is not worth knocking down and I indeed plan on visiting again in the future. Plus, they always offer hot chocolate to walkers on the Christmas eve farolito walk and that certainly has to count as some...

Two stars because the food was decent, the location is cool, and the owner is very friendly, but the waitress totally ruined this place for us. She was immediately hostile and stubbornly ignorant of their menu. The term "gluten-free options" is carved in wood on their sign so one would assume the servers know what that means, but when the server stated "we're out of the gluten-free bread, so nothing here is gluten" we knew she had no idea that corn tortillas a fine substitute.

Some other fun highlights - "no the burrito can't have veggies on it, only beef. The only veggies are in the omelet -bell pepper, mushroom, and onion", when we asked for the napkins she forgot for our table of 6 she brought two and when we asked for enough napkins for everyone she brought 70...when it came time to serve the food she very dramatically, very angrily kicked the chair that was kind of in her way multiple times, being sure to make as much noise as possible and awkwardly set down the food.

It's just too funny how hard she tried to be passively aggressively mean about every little thing to be that mad about it, but it sure made for an uncomfortable dining experience. If that server weren't there...

The owner was nice and really selling us on the "best New Mexican food" personally inviting us for lunch. The food was good, not necessarily the best.

The live music was nice and there was a store to buy NM merch in the restaurant.

The service was frustrating. They won't do split checks (granted we had a party of 9). One of our group was given the wrong burrito (one no one had ordered). During the meal, a clump of pineneedles fell on one of our group's plate, and the waiter dismissively "ah, it won't kill ya" before awkwardly offering to change plates with fresh beans and veggies, offering napkins for him to brush it off.

The most inappropriate aspect was at the end of the meal, the waiter came out took my card, handed me to iPad to sign & add tip and said "Here, you can just hit the 25% tip there" pointing to it (next to the 20% and 15%). Pressuring customers to tip 25% on the spot was rude and uncomfortable.

25% is a great tip for excellent service. Service here was subpar.

Won't fault the restaurant for the actions of one waiter but was not a great...