New coffee shop on Taos’ south side creates buzz

For Pablo Flores and Lydia McHaley, a cup of coffee is more than just ... a cup of coffee. It’s an experience. And despite the ubiquity of the widely consumed beverage and the many places that serve it, where you have that experience matters, they say.

Here in Taos, there are already more than a dozen places where you can grab an above-average cup of joe. Each offers something a bit different – from the beans to the baked goods, the baristas, the music selection, to the clientele.

With the opening of The Coffee Apothecary, Taos’ newest coffee spot adjoining Gearing Up Bicycle Shop at 616 Paseo del Pueblo Sur, Flores and McHaley hope to offer something unique while fitting right in with their many neighbors.

“Taos has great coffee shops, and we just want to add to that,” Flores, 27, says. “Variety is what makes a small town fun, and we want to provide something different. Our ambiance is different, our coffee is different.”

The shop’s combination of high-quality coffee and “apothecary” products – healthful blends of herbs and other natural ingredients made in house by McHaley – also helps to distinguish its offerings.

But the couple expects that long-term success for a coffee shop in Taos will stem from building strong relationships within the community.

From the ground up

Flores, a native Taoseño, started out in the business when his father, Greg Flores, opened a coffee cart on Bent Street. He manned the small station on early winter mornings, pouring brewed varieties and pulling espresso shots while chatting up locals on their way to work and tourists making their way around the historic district.

“Really, it was my father who taught me to be a barista,” he said. “And it’s not really that we just served coffee. Being a small businessman, he kept that element of really interfacing with customers. When he opened up his shop, he brought that same attitude: Get to know your customers – their name, their drink – be a part of the community.”

In the late 2000s, his father opened Elevation Coffee in El Prado – one of Taos’ longest-running coffee joints, which is now under new ownership. Pablo Flores finished out high school working in the shop, and when his father opened Espresso Fino in downtown Albuquerque as a higher-end coffee spot, he learned the finer points of a made-to-order latte, finished with his own signature designs.

“I think Fino really changed coffee in Albuquerque,” Flores said. “Nobody had really seen latte art before or the machine or the style of coffee we were doing or that level of consistency and quality – having that really strong customer service, where it’s not just, ‘Hi, give me money.’ It was more like we knew everybody – we knew them, we knew their drink, we knew their family members.”

Flores and his father became so adept in the business, in fact, they became known for spotting a regular coming from a distance and having their favorite drink ready to go by the time they reached the counter.

During his sophomore year at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, McHaley, 25, and her parents stopped by the shop, and she and Flores met for the first time.

After another chance encounter on campus, they began dating, sharing the idea of one day starting a business of their own. The ideas brewed while they spent a short time working at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society.

“At the start of September, we had moved back to Albuquerque and were looking for a place,” Flores said.

After a house and a business location both fell through in Albuquerque, Flores was visited by a friend, who said that a space was open next to Gearing Up. The business had wanted a coffee shop as a neighbor for years, he said.

“It was pretty rough and a little scary,” Flores said, recalling the first time they checked out the raw space. “But Lydia was the one who said that we should start the shop here. Lydia was right – she was really, really right.”

The renovation started in October and a grand opening was held Dec. 26.

“We ripped out the ceiling and built the counter,” he continued. “We tried to recycle as much as possible from what was there. We fixed the existing plumbing and just went for it. Now here we are,” he said.

Growing quickly

On a Friday afternoon in January, Flores’ red pickup truck sat parked in front of the new shop. A simple sign reading “Coffee” stood in the truck bed.

Inside, McHaley stood behind the counter chatting to the first customer in line – one of several arriving for the afternoon rush. Tea bags from local tea maker Tea.o.graphy hung over her head. To her left, a flurry of activity developed as Flores rapidly pulled espresso shots and artfully poured thick foam into cups. The coffee, Flores explained, was carefully chosen from Las Cruces’ Picacho Coffee Roasters.

“A lot of people think it’s about what the roaster and barista do when in all actuality, the foundation for the flavor is the farmer,” Flores said. “I love having a roaster who is wanting to capture what the farmer is doing. I just made a batch of Sumatran. People say, ‘Oh, I’ve had Sumatran before.’ Well, you haven’t had one like this.”

In the case to the left of the register are croissants and black currant scones from local business Sweet Sol Baking Co.

“I’ve never had pastries like theirs before in New Mexico,” Flores said. “People who are spending six hours a day folding and rolling croissant dough and not charging you an arm and a leg for it? That’s pretty wild.”

In front of the counter, on the western wall are the apothecary items – natural skin care products made of ingredients like lime peel and tangerine, geranium and eucalyptus.

Though the shop is new, the clean midcentury-style furniture doesn’t exactly feel new. Several people lounged in white chairs at white tables or sat at the bar against the east-facing windows carrying on conversation as though they had done so for years.

And that’s just what the young entrepreneurs are shooting for: to settle in naturally, as if they’ve always been there.

“Everything feels so new right now,” McHaley said. “I want to see everything get a little more worn in and look back and remember when everything was new, where we can see coffee stains on everything,” she laughs. “That means we’re doing it right.”

Business hours are Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday 7 a.m. to noon.