Chaco Canyon Cafe

Favorite Bites: Artichoke Melt
Food: (poor) 1 2 3 4 5 (excellent)
Service: (poor) 1 2 3 4 5 (excellent)
Appearance: (poor) 1 2 3 4 5 (excellent)

Chaco Canyon Café's mission is to "provide delicious organic sustanance for a wide variety of needs and individual tastes." They use fresh organic produce, organic nuts, seeds, spices and oils, changing their menu with the seasons. What this translates to is an extensive amount of raw foods options, vegan sandwich and soup options, living juice and wheatgrass, organic loose-leaf teas, shade-grown organic espresso, and Fair Trade organic shade-grown coffee. Their food is 100% vegan and 95% organic. Additionally, they recycle and compost the majority of their total waste and don't offer plastic utensils.

On my first visit I decided to go ahead and try their most popular raw food option, the Spicy Thai Grinder. They prepare a patty of peanuts, carrots, cilantro, garlic and hot peppers and serve it on a bed of spinach with chopped savoy cabbage and a miso glaze drizzled over it. I will certainly agree with the name of this dish - it is very spicy. The cabbage and miso did help to cool it down, and the miso in particular was very good. As raw foods go I would say that the dish was good, but I prefer their vegan hot sandwhiches, which can be made on spelt bread upon request. On a recent visit I shared a hot Pesto Melt and "Tuna" Melt from their regular menu and an Artichoke Melt from their daily special. The Artichoke Melt was considered the best of all three options as it had a nice blend of lemon and spices with the artichokes and vegan cheese. The hot Tunaless Melt has housemade almond-dulse tuna, vegan cheddar, garlic aioli, marinated onions, sprouts, and tomato grilled on Essential Bakery rye bread. It was good, but a bit bland. The hot Pesto Melt has their housemade basil, parsley and walnut Pesto with vegan mozzarella, marinated onions, sprouts, and tahini, grilled on Essential Bakery foccacia and served with sprouts and tomatoes. While we all liked this, I think it would have been better with more tomatoes or something such as avacado or vegan mayo to counteract the saltiness of the pesto. All of the sandwhiches are served with housemade Coleslaw or Terra Chips. At first taste I liked the coleslaw, but didn't care for the aftertaste which was pretty spicy. The terra chips they serve are also spicy, which I don't prefer. Another option is to order a Cup of Daily Soup or a daily half salad with your sandwhich.

I've not tried any of their raw juice combinations, but I love the name of one of the options: Swamp Monster. It's made with pear, carrot, beet, apple, and spinach. I have tried a few of their Smoothies, which are made with 100% organic produce, and no ice, sherbet, or other sugary fillers. The "Classic," which is made with strawberries, bananas, almonds, and your choice of milk, was good but a bit bland tasting. I much preferred a recent tropical option they had as a daily special, which had peaches & in-season berries. It was much more flavorful. A friend of mine likes the "Mocha Madness" the best, which is made with espresso, housemade chocolate, agave, soy, and choice of milk. Since I'm not an espresso fan I didn't care for it, but I think it would taste pretty amazing without the espresso.

The only dessert I've tried has been the raw food Carrot Cake. It is composed of soaked and dehydrated almonds, fresh carrot, dates, raisins, and spices and then topped with a thick frosting of cashews, lemon and vanilla. While it was moist, it was not sweet enough for my tastes and the frosting was a bit dense. All of the other dessert options are also raw foods based, so I just tend to stick with the smoothies to satisfy my sweet-tooth.

Service, while very pleasant, can often be extremely slow. This is both true for eating there and for getting items to go. During one lunch break that I ordered food to go there were even people who came in *after* me who got their meals and/or drinks before mine was ready (this included people who were both eating in the restaurant and ordering to-go items) This is certainly not a place to go if you have any time constraints or are starved at all. On the other hand, when a mistake had been recently made to our order (they served my friend a salad with his sandwich when he'd ordered soup) it was easily pleasantly resolved. In fact, the server made a comment was that it's always good to have more salad as she brought my friend his soup.

Color-wise the decor could be considered Southwestern, but it feels more like a funky laid-back cafe to me. There's a bookshelf full of books and games to play while waiting for your food. They also have free wireless. Local artwork decorating the walls, which currently depicts odd alien/cartoon-looking characters. It can be a place to relax, provided you aren't disturbed by the artwork as of of the people in my group recently were, but isn't really a place to linger in the summer as they do not have air conditioning and it can get pretty stuffy in the restaurant.