I walked into Santa Fe Biscochito Company at 330 Sandoval Street for a biscochito and an iced coffee and found a living room. A brown leather couch sat directly under the old Primo Cigar sign, string lights blinking softly behind it, a small lamp glowing on the side table. Two people had already claimed the couch like it was theirs. A large devotional painting of Our Lady hung on the wall opposite the coffee bar. The Primo Cigar sign stayed right where the previous tenant left it. Nobody moved it. It belongs.
That layering, old sign, new cookies, somebody's abuela's recipe running on solar power, is the whole story of this place and the man who built it.
How You Get Here From There
Richard Perea is a Santa Fe native. Before biscochitos, he was a jewelry designer with an outlet on the Plaza. He also worked in the food industry. In 2020 he lost his last living parent. He lost his food industry job. He lost the Plaza jewelry outlet. Three pillars, gone in one year.
A lesser version of that story ends there. Perea's version has a next chapter. In 2021 he launched a solar-powered cart on the Plaza and started selling biscochitos, New Mexico's official state cookie, made the traditional way: with lard, anise, and cinnamon sugar. No shortcuts, no plant-based swaps. The cart worked. People came back. In 2024 he signed on the former Primo Cigar Company building on Sandoval and opened a full shop, coffees, creamery, and all.
He kept the sign.
The Cookie First
Perea makes three versions of the biscochito: traditional, red chile, and green chile. All three are made with lard, the way they have always been made in New Mexico homes. The chile versions are not a gimmick. Red and green are the flavors this state runs on, and putting them in the state cookie is less a creative leap than an obvious completion.
"It's such a humble cookie," Perea says. "It's not the ingredients. It's the way it makes you feel. It reminds me of my childhood."
That is the whole pitch, and it is a good one. The best local food in this city tends to work the same way: it does not need to explain itself. You taste it and you remember something. The biscochito has been doing that in Santa Fe kitchens for generations. What Perea did was take it out of the kitchen and put it on Sandoval Street with an espresso machine next to it.
The Menu Goes Further Than You Expect
The biscochito is the anchor, but it is not the ceiling. Perea built out a full creamery program. The Biscookie is an ice cream sandwich made with two biscochitos. The biscochito ice cream was co-developed with Joel Coleman of La Lecheria, and it is exactly the collaboration you want to see happen between two Santa Fe makers. The Chingon Pinon ice cream is another house flavor. The Biscoccino, which appears on the chalkboard behind the counter, rounds out the ice cream lineup.
Beyond the sweets: breakfast burritos and bagel sandwiches. The menu board photographed in the shop lists bagel options and breakfast sandwiches with bacon or sausage. It is a real breakfast counter, not a pastry case with an afterthought.
The shop carries New Mexico True certification, which means it has met the state's standard for being a genuine New Mexico product and experience. The SF Reporter gave it first place in Best of Santa Fe 2025. Those are not soft endorsements.
Santa Fe keeps producing this kind of story: a local person, a tight concept, a building with history, and a line forming before noon. Biscochito Company fits squarely in that pattern.
The Room Itself
The Primo Cigar building has more square footage than you expect from the street. The front counter and ice cream case greet you first, then the room opens into the dining area: cafe tables, black chairs, framed photography and paintings running along the walls. At the back, the leather couch waits under the Primo Cigar sign, string lights framing it, a small fireplace nearby. It reads less like a designed vibe and more like a room someone actually put together for people they know.
Perea is a jewelry designer by original training. You can feel that sensibility in how the space is arranged: nothing gratuitous, everything placed with some intention. The devotional painting, the old sign, the string lights, the small cacti on the tables. It does not feel like a startup. It feels like somewhere that has been here longer than it has.
What to Know Before You Go
Santa Fe Biscochito Company is at 330 Sandoval Street. Holiday pre-orders open November 1. If you are the kind of person who sends biscochitos to family out of state, or who waits until December and then panics, that date is the one to remember. The biscochito is the state cookie for a reason, and Perea's version, made with lard and available in red or green chile, is the kind you pre-order rather than risk missing.
The shop is New Mexico True certified and won first place in the SF Reporter Best of Santa Fe 2025. Santa Fe has always had strong local food makers, but this one carries something extra: a story that started in grief and got rebuilt one solar-powered cart at a time.
Richard Perea did not set out to run a biscochito shop. He set out to survive 2020 and figure out what came next. What came next is a leather couch under an old cigar sign, a case full of lard-made cookies, and a first-place ribbon on the door. Not a bad answer to a hard question.
So: red, green, or traditional?