Tia Sophia’s

Tia means aunt. Sophia Maryol was a grandmother rather than an aunt, at least to the family that named this place for her, and a Greek immigrant who ran a cafe in Albuquerque and kept six children fed out of it. Her son Jim and his wife Ann opened a New Mexican breakfast counter on West San Francisco Street in 1975, a short walk west of the Plaza, and gave it her name in Spanish. So the most argued-about plate of eggs and chile in this city comes from a Greek family out of Albuquerque, under a Spanish word. That is not a paradox. It is a fairly exact description of how Santa Fe assembles itself.

The Burrito Question

This is where the breakfast burrito comes from, which is true in one narrow sense and false in every other, and the family handles the claim more carefully than most of the people who repeat it.

What is documented is this. In 1975 the words “breakfast burrito” went onto the menu here, attached to a flour tortilla of bacon and potatoes served on a plate under chile and cheese, and no earlier menu use has been produced by anyone. Nick Maryol, Jim’s son, who has run the restaurant since 2005, has said in print that he credits his father with originating the term. He has also said, unprompted, that his father did not invent the food, because New Mexicans had been rolling eggs, bacon, and potatoes into tortillas for breakfast long before anyone thought to print a name for it.

There is a competing Santa Fe claim, made for the hand-held version by a woman who arrived from Los Angeles the same year. The two do not really conflict. One is about a plate, the other about a thing you can carry to school.

Which leaves the defensible version, and it is the better one. Naming a thing is not the same as making it, and it is frequently more consequential.

Christmas, and What Is Under the Folklore

The other thing credited to this address is a single word. Martha Rotunno waited tables here for years, and she is the person Santa Fe credits with settling the red-or-green question by telling undecided customers to have both and calling it Christmas. Nick Maryol puts the story at about ninety percent true, which is a more candid figure than most restaurants offer about their own folklore. The word went statewide regardless, and it is now on menus run by people who have never heard of her.

Underneath the folklore there is a kitchen. Maryol describes his green chile as a little garlic, a little salt, cornstarch, and not much else. He calls green the gateway chile and red the connoisseur’s. Stuffed sopaipillas, huevos rancheros, and the burrito the argument is about.

What Kind of Place It Is

A downtown storefront with turquoise booths, paintings on the walls, a counter, and a crowd mixed between people who work nearby and people on their first morning in Santa Fe. It serves breakfast and lunch and then it is done for the day. Nick Maryol started bussing tables here at six. His parents ran the place in alternation, five days each, so that one of them was always in the building, which never appears in a review and explains most of why a restaurant opened in 1975 is still standing.

Cafe Pasqual’s is two blocks away and cooks a completely different idea of breakfast. Tomasita’s, out in the Railyard, was opened the year before by Jim Maryol’s sister Georgia, which makes the two restaurants siblings in the literal sense. The Shed, off the Plaza, is where the red chile argument in this city usually gets settled, and La Choza is the same argument on the far side of the tracks. When the morning is over, Joseph’s Culinary Pub on Agua Fria is what downtown dinner looks like. Chile is a crop with a season; The Santa Fe Year explains when it is at its best.

Common Questions

Was the breakfast burrito invented at Tia Sophia’s?

No, and the family says so plainly. The dish is older than the restaurant. What the record supports is narrower and more interesting: the words “breakfast burrito” went onto this menu in 1975, and no earlier menu use has been produced.

Who was Tia Sophia?

Sophia Maryol, a Greek immigrant who ran a cafe in Albuquerque. Her son Jim and his wife Ann opened the restaurant in 1975 and named it for her. Their son Nick has owned it since 2005.