A dream bears fruit
For two brothers from Guatemala, dream that began years ago culminates with new cafe
Guatemalan brothers realize their goal of opening cafe
The smell of roasting coffee beans wafted its way into young Erwin Sagche’s soul. Growing up on his family’s 3-acre farm near Antigua, Guatemala, the now 38-year-old Santa Fe resident shimmied up the trunks of emerald-leafed trees to pluck rubyred Arabica coffee cherries, stealing tastes here and there of the plants’ juiciest crops. (Coffee cherries, the fruits that encase the better-known beans, have a subtly sweet flavor, somewhere between watermelon and cherry, with a tart aftertaste.)
Then, in winter, his mother roasted the pebble-sized dried beans in a traditional comal skillet and hand-ground the product on rough stone. The sweet, earthy aroma of coffee floated through the property.
“Coffee, anywhere you go, it smells the same,” Sagche said. “When I make it here … I smell it, and it feels really like home.”
Sagche is the coproprietor, along with his brother, 36-year-old Walfre Sagche, of Santa Fe’s latest caffeine oasis, Sagche’s Coffee House, a cafe that is helping, in some ways, to bring the brothers’ oft-trying childhood full circle. At Sagche’s, the coffee is strong and the food is earning a small but passionate following.
Located next to Loyal Hound in a shopping center off St. Michael’s Drive, Sagche’s occupies a modest space most recently home to a Pizza Hut carryout counter — and let’s just say not much has changed in terms of ambiance from the previous proprietor. A dozen or so slightly worn four-tops and wooden chairs fill out the light-filled room. A stainless steel kitchen sits in plain view behind a counter. The menu is mounted on the wall.
There’s nothing trendy about Sagche’s, but that’s OK. It’s the food and drink that headline here.
At the counter, customers order from a menu of Santa Fe favorites and breakfast classics — fruit-topped waffles ($7), crepes ($6.50$7.95) and breakfast burritos served smothered or hand-held ($7.50), to name a few.
A small lunch menu features enchiladas ($6.95-$8.95), burritos ($8.50-$8.95), salads and sandwiches. The Sagches source their mediumspicy red and green chile from Hatch.
But perhaps the real star of the Sagche show is the coffee.
The Sagche brothers get their beans from Albuquerque-based OdaCrem, a familyowned roaster. It’s no wonder Erwin Sagche felt an affinity — OdaCrem’s head roaster also hails from Central America’s coffee farms.
At the cafe, sample an assortment of organic, single-origin brews, order up an espresso drink or, if the weather serves, grab an iced coffee, served with coffee ice cubes to keep the caffeine flowing even as your cuppa warms.
The aroma takes Sagche to his happy place — but it’s a place tinged with sadness.
When Sagche was 9 and his brother 7, their mother was traveling between their home and Guatemala City, a 45-minute haul by bus that traverses cliff-faced mountain switchbacks. The driver fell asleep, the bus plummeted and she died. Two years later, the boys’ father, a musician who’d been playing a gig in Guatemala City, died in a separate bus accident along the same route.
“Over there, it’s a hard life,” Erwin Sagche said of Guatemala. “Even if you have enough money, even if you have an idea to do a business or something like that, it’s hard.”
An older sister cared for the duo and their other sister, eventually spearheading a family exodus to Santa Fe, where all four siblings now live.
Erwin Sagche, who came to the City Different in 1998, cut his teeth in the city’s restaurant world, starting out as a dishwasher at the old El Nido. Since then, he’s risen through the ranks. Even as his restaurant takes off, he still works as a manager at Tomasita’s, a gig he’s held for five years.
Walfre Sagche, too, has a background in restaurants, most recently working at the French Pastry Shop in La Fonda on the Plaza. The brothers collaborate on the menu, with Erwin whipping up recipes and Walfre, a breakfast aficionado, tweaking here and there.
Though the idea for the coffee shop started percolating 18 years ago, it’s only been a couple years since the brothers decided to make a real go of it. They involved no banks in the transaction — relying instead on their combined savings and loans from friends.
The eatery’s start came at a tough time personally. One of Erwin Sagche’s two daughters, 6-year-old Lesli, was diagnosed with leukemia two years ago. Her course of chemotherapy nearly finished, Sagche said he’s forging ahead.
“The idea, we kept it on,” he said. “We couldn’t stop it.”
Now, with the opening under his belt, Sagche says his ultimate goal is to expand the menu and, eventually, open more locations.
The name might be a bit of a misnomer given the cafe’s full food menu, but for Sagche, it will always come back to the coffee and those fields of dreams back home.
“The people, as long as they know you serve really good coffee, eventually they will come,” he said.