New coffee shop hopes to spread positivity
Ranchos de Taos will be welcoming a new coffee shop, as Mountain Monk offers a spiritual spin on the traditional café.
A small storefront comfortably situated along NM 68, just north of the Ranchos Post Office, subtly advertises coffee on a small sign, a call to be heeded in the coming days as Mountain Monk settles into its new location. An open courtyard awaits summertime guests, while an earthy interior pays homage to the organic menu presented on a chalkboard. An assortment of seating arrangements populate the quaint space, which owner Lacy Archer envisions being a gathering place for community members.
The idea behind Mountain Monk is being what Archer calls the “third place” in the daily lives of many individuals. To her, people have their homes, their workspace and oftentimes a coffee shop as an intermediary stop. Archer hopes to use this space to spread positivity and environmental awareness to those who enter it, as well as, she added, promoting free thought among her customers.
“This business is a regenerative humanity coffee house,” Archer said, “which means that it’s here to create vitality for the community, to bring people together, to bring people back to center, to interweave communities, create more free-thinkers in the world — create a space that people can come to, and they can get new ideas.”
Mountain Monk began as an environmental sustainability project but grew into a coffee shop to fulfill what Archer views as a need for humanity. In addition to environmental awareness, Archer also hopes to educate consumers on veganism and vegetarianism, as all of their food options stem from these dietary modes. The establishment also charges a 25-cent “awareness tax” on all dairy milk, offering guests hemp milk and oat milk as regular substitutes.
Being a former yoga instructor has given Archer a unique perspective on owning a business.
“If somebody comes onto their [yoga] mat, you might be able to help them,” Archer said, “but also, if they’re coming onto their mat, they already are having a sense of self-realization and are on their path to being in wholeness. But it’s actually the greater population of humanity that really needs this healing, and they don’t even know what a yoga mat is. So, this third place is an interface with that greater population of humanity.”
Originally hailing from Durango, Col., Mountain Monk brings with it the “yum factor,” or a transferral of positive influences from the cook to the food, and from the food to the consumer.
“When we’re preparing a drink or food, we’re going so far over the top with this preparation,” Archer said. “Every single time we do it, we make it extra-special. When we do this, we make it so beautiful that we want it. This is the ‘Yum,’ right? You’re like, ‘Yum, I want this.’ Then we send that out. It’s what we’re cultivating inside. It’s what’s being planted in whatever it is we’re doing.”
She hopes that the yum factor will influence customers to go out and spread positivity wherever they go. It is through this culinary transmission of positivity that Archer seeks to make a difference in the world.
Archer considers Mountain Monk to be a collaboration between her and the customers, noting that the shop will “become whatever the community wants it to become.” To improve this interface with the community, plenty of events will be held at the coffee shop, including live music and more private, ceremonial events.
Mountain Monk will be starting early, with their first event, a Wise Women’s Gathering, happening on April 16. This gathering seeks to encourage discussions surrounding femininity and mother earth, an important symbol for Archer and Mountain Monk. Archer will be hosting mentors from around the nation to come lead these discussions, while a local muralist will
conduct the collaborative creation of a mother-earth mural.
This event will also focus on clean water and its relation to the earth. Archer has high-tech water purification equipment, and hopes to improve that infrastructure later on.
“What happens when we host all these different events, and we collaborate with all these different communities,” Archer said, “is that it creates one central hub for people, for different communities, and when different communities come in and start to intermingle and intertwine, it creates more thought in the world, more free-thinkers.”
Archer closed the original location in Durango because it became too hectic, but she moved the business to Taos because she “wanted to come home.” When she was 22, Archer’s Winnebago broke down in Taos, and she ended up staying for a decade before moving on to Durango. However, Durango will not be without its Mountain Monk, as a new location will be opening there as a member of The Whole History Project, a multimedia art collective.