Innovative Meow Wolf continues ‘polishing the gem’
Santa Fe installation closes briefly to renovate, add new cafe and bar
SANTA FE — Meow Wolf’s “House of Eternal Return” has come a long way since its March 2016 debut, says chief business development officer Damian Taggart.
“When we first opened, we were putting paint on two minutes before the opening gala,” Taggart recalled. “And it wasn’t until the first year we did upgrades (that) those thoughts continued to be completed.”
For the second time since opening, the “House of Eternal Return” — a surreal set of rooms inhabited by a fictional family whose strange story is hidden in the details — closed its doors recently for about two weeks to renovate and create new spaces.
“It has more detail and feels like more mature of a product,” Taggart said.
Upgrades made during the Jan. 29-Feb. 12 closure include two new rooms to explore and a new cafe/bar, as well as smaller-scale improvements that CEO Vince Kadlubek described as “polishing the gem.”
Those include several new large art pieces, two new consoles in the arcade room and about five additional murals throughout the building, including one made with nonprofit ARTSmart and 10 Milagro Middle School students. The changes were in addition to repainting and refreshing already existing spaces.
“The exhibition needed TLC,” said project manager Gio Gonzales, citing what he said were record attendance numbers last summer. Spokesman John Feins was unsure about summer-specific attendance, but said 2017 saw 500,000 visitors, with each month outdoing 2016 figures.
With new sites in Denver and Las Vegas, Nev., on the horizon, Kadlubek said this year’s process was all about giving the original Santa Fe branch “autonomy.” He and many other Meow Wolf officials who helped create the “House of Eternal Return” were not as hands-on with the new changes.
Kadlubek described the additions as a chance for site-specific employees to work with artists and handle projects on their own, just like Meow Wolf folks at the Las Vegas and Denver locations will have to do. “The goal is, two years from now, Denver and Vegas will be able to look at this and say, ‘This is really how it’s done’ and then model off of this model,” he said.
In the new cafe and bar, named Float, menu items like margaritas and absinthe topped with cotton candy, and espresso lined with edible glitter were designed to complement the Meow Wolf experience and Float’s own sci-fi aesthetic, says cafe manager Sandra Vacca.
The Santa Fe City Council in November approved Meow Wolf’s full liquor license application. The plan was to replace Duel Brewing, which had been serving beer and wine and Meow Wolf’s limited pre-packaged snack options. The full liquor license allows Meow Wolf staff to sell alcohol in the evening and on weekends, as well as to serve coffee, Italian sodas and food full time.