"It's fair," Jorge Antura told the Santa Fe New Mexican this summer, talking about the landlords who chose not to renew his lease. "They own the land, and they have a right to lease it to whoever they want."
Antura and Jesus Rivera own Pecos Trail Café at 2239 Old Pecos Trail. They announced on social media that the restaurant expects to close in February 2027, after about 14 and a half years in that spot. Antura told the paper the hardest part would be saying goodbye to the neighborhood, especially the families whose children he watched grow from kids into teenagers and then young adults.
The landlord is the Pecos Trail Inn, and that is what the rest of this story turns on. The café has always been the restaurant wing of a motel. When the motel went looking for its next tenant, it chose one that plans to stay open across more of the day than the café ever did.
What closes in February
The café's website describes its cooking as New Mexican with Mexican cultural influence. It lists hours of 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4:30 to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday. An earlier New Mexican food profile pointed to its house-made flour tortillas. That profile named red and green chile bowls, enchiladas, Frito pies, stuffed sopaipillas, carne adovada, Shrimp Veracruzana and burritos among the dishes it was known for.
The owners haven't set a last day, and they haven't named a new address yet. "We are planning to relocate to somewhere else," Antura told the New Mexican. "We're exploring all opportunities." So for now the plan is simply to keep eating there through the winter, while the café is still open.
A motel that has welcomed locals since 1955
The property's history explains why its restaurant matters to the neighborhood. According to the Pecos Trail Inn's own history, the property opened in 1955 as the Town House Inn, back when the southeast side of Santa Fe was "just pinon trees and gravel roads." The inn describes the Town House as a destination for locals as well as travelers. Its old lounge, now the event space, had a dance floor and served surf and turf.
In the late 1960s the Ellis family bought the motel and moved from Ohio into what is now the two-bedroom manager's suite. They later renamed it the Pecos Trail Inn and added the restaurant building and the casitas. Current owners Leah and Adam Vincent describe their updates to the rooms and grounds as a multi-year project, aimed at a retro-modern, family-friendly motor lodge.
The road outside is older than the motel. In 2026, Route 66's centennial year, it's worth knowing that the original Mother Road came into the capital along what is now Old Pecos Trail. It circled the Plaza and then ran down Cerrillos Road and Agua Fria Road toward the old Camino Real, as the New Mexican's Route 66 guide recounts. Tourism Santa Fe dates that alignment to 1926 through 1937. The 1937 realignment cut out about 100 miles and took Santa Fe off the route.
The Town House opened 18 years after that change, so it was never a Route 66 motel. It was built on the old route's corridor for a later generation of road trips, and it made room for its neighbors from the start. That pattern repeats with this new tenant.
The inn approached the brewpub
Rowley Farmhouse Ales will take over the café space. The Santa Fe Reporter reported in August that owner and brewer John Rowley and chef Jeffrey Kaplan hadn't planned to move. The owners of the hotel and its attached restaurant building came to them. RFA opened about ten years ago on Maclovia Street in Midtown and celebrated its tenth anniversary on September 6.
The match worked for practical reasons on both sides. Kaplan told the Reporter that the Maclovia space tops out at about 30 seats indoors, which is what matters in winter when the patio isn't usable. According to Dark Side Brew Crew, the Pecos Trail restaurant covers just under 5,000 square feet. The inn had been looking for a tenant after its owners put substantial money into renovating the 23-room motor lodge and the pool area. "The new space is much bigger, and the kind of kitchen you don't really see anymore," Kaplan told the Reporter. He mentioned a walk-in fridge and a walk-in freezer, which RFA has never had.
The kitchen's hours are about to widen
The real change for the neighborhood is when the building will be serving. The café runs lunch and dinner six days a week. RFA's plans, as described to Dark Side Brew Crew and the Reporter, reach into mornings, weekends and private gatherings.
| Pecos Trail Café, current | Rowley Farmhouse Ales, as planned | |
|---|---|---|
| Meals | Lunch and dinner, Mon–Sat | Everything RFA serves now, plus breakfast service |
| Weekends | Saturday lunch and dinner | Brunch under discussion, most likely Sundays |
| Baking | House-made flour tortillas | A new baking department, starting with fermented bagels |
| Gatherings | Dining room | A private room for about 50 guests |
| Outdoors | Inn pool for guests in season | Licensed service at the inn's public pool, plus a covered patio |
| Drinks | Full liquor license, house beers, a large bottle list |
On brunch, Kaplan put the odds at "70/30" in favor of Sundays and said a Bloody Mary bar is what convinced him. Rowley talked about bagels too. "This town needs a properly fermented bagel," he told Dark Side Brew Crew. That fits a plan to scale back from a 7-barrel to a 3.5-barrel brewhouse and focus on barrel-aged, mixed-culture beers, aging them in a refrigerated shipping container on site. For the private room, Rowley listed karaoke, homebrew club meetings and quinceañeras as examples.
The regulars' menu is coming along. The Reporter listed the Cobb salad, tuna melt, fried chicken sandwich and skillet enchiladas among RFA's best-known dishes. Kaplan told Dark Side Brew Crew that the tuna melt "is not going anywhere." Rowley said a pricier part of town won't mean higher prices. "We have a formula and we're sticking to it."
The pool piece won't matter until summer. The inn says its pool season generally runs from Memorial Day to mid-September, so it is closed for now.
The calendar between the two kitchens
The timing has some slack in it. The café expects to close in February 2027. RFA must be out of Maclovia Street by the end of March and is aiming to open on Old Pecos Trail in early spring 2027. Kaplan said both RFA locations won't be open at the same time. Rowley told the Reporter that March is possible for opening but April "might be a bit more realistic." Expect the 2239 Old Pecos Trail kitchen to sit quiet for part of late winter.
Before the handoff, the rest of the fall
The motel's Route 66 corridor and the café's final months fall during a busy few weeks along this side of town.
- Weird Science Halloween Bash, Tuesday, October 27, 3 to 6 p.m. The Santa Fe Children's Museum at 1050 Old Pecos Trail hosts this fundraiser with trick-or-treating through the museum and science activities. Tickets are $25 per adult, $15 for adult members, $10 for ages 2 to 17, and free for children one and under. Adults must attend with a child.
- Día de los Muertos on the Plaza, October 30 and 31. The city's celebration includes Route 66-themed classic cars. Hours run 4 to 10 p.m. on the 30th and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on the 31st, per Tourism Santa Fe.
- Route 66 First Sunday Market at Tumbleroot Brewing and Distilling. It repeats on the first Sunday of each month, which this season falls on November 1 and December 6. The listed 2 to 6 p.m. hours are summer hours, so check before you go.
- Guided Route 66 outings. Tourism Santa Fe lists "History Alive! A Walk Along Rte 66 in Its Oldest City," redeemable through November 30, 2026. It also lists the Vigilante Guides "Route 66 Unpolished Tour" through December 26, 2026.
Between those dates, the café keeps its lunch and dinner hours Monday through Saturday until February.
If Old Pecos Trail's next chapter has you thinking about your own place on this corridor, Paige Cochran would be glad to walk you through what your home is worth as the neighborhood's longtime table turns over. Request a Free Home Valuation, and we'll begin with a conversation rather than a pitch.
