La Rana Coffee now operates in the lobby of an independent theater at 1020 Midtown Calle Central. Danielle Marie's La Rana Coffee expanded from a Canyon Road cart to a 525-square-foot space at Sky Cinema-Midtown in Santa Fe's Midtown district. Marie said consistent foot traffic is a perk compared to tourism-dependent Canyon Road. La Rana Coffee is open 8 AM to 3 PM daily.
We, the LIVIN team, visited La Rana Coffee inside Sky Cinemas Midtown on the morning of Sunday, October 11, 2026. A glowing pink neon frog sits in an arched alcove above the La Rana coffee bar. The La Rana bar has teal shelves and cabinets set into pink arched alcoves, with a green counter. A green frog drawing decorates the front of the La Rana counter, and an Odd Box sticker sits beside the register.
The Pumpkin Toadlet board
At La Rana, a lit marquee-style sign above the espresso machine reads La Rana Coffee featuring Odd Box Coffee. A chalkboard on the La Rana counter advertises the Pumpkin Toadlet: real pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, espresso and milk, for $7.25. A small orange pumpkin sits on the La Rana counter beside the Pumpkin Toadlet board. A jar on the La Rana counter is labeled La Rana Tips. La Rana takes payment on a Toast card terminal at the counter.
A Lunch and Pastries chalkboard at La Rana lists a bacon, egg and cheddar croissant, a ham and Swiss croissant, a tuna sandwich on ciabatta and a caprese on ciabatta. We, the LIVIN team, ordered iced coffee drinks served in clear plastic cups.
La Rana pours beans from Odd Box Coffee, roasted by Tom, who has pursued the craft of coffee for more than 20 years. He was first introduced to home-roasting in 2003, using nothing more than a hot-air popcorn popper in his dorm room. Odd Box coffees on the menu include Pantomime, a medium blend; Summertime, a dark blend; and Kirinyaga, a light Kenya coffee.
A popcorn machine next to the coffee bar
The bar at La Rana shares the lobby with a stainless popcorn machine, a Movie Time neon sign shaped like a popcorn tub and a neon sign reading Snacks. The Sky Midtown lobby has orange and pink walls, round globe pendant lights, a terrazzo floor, and teal round tables with red chairs. Large black and white portrait artworks hang on an orange wall in the lobby, and a framed poster for the film Frogs hangs near the windows. On Sunday morning, October 11, 2026, the lobby was busy, with people standing at the counter and sitting at the tables.
Sky Midtown is a locally owned and operated art-house cinema, with a Nuckolls Brewing Taproom and cafe. Everyone is welcome in the cafe and bar to enjoy food and beverages, and a movie ticket is only required to enter the auditoriums. Banowsky planned to expand the menu in the small, vibrant main lobby to include food and local beer options that go beyond the typical offerings found in movie theaters of old.
Sky Cinemas Midtown
The 130-seat Sky Midtown, as owner Bill Banowsky calls it, is a reimagining of The Screen, a former arthouse theater where film students gathered from the late 1990s through the late 2010s to watch and discuss movies. Santa Feans came out on March 14 to support the soft opening of Sky Cinemas Midtown, which held its grand opening in March 2026 with a screening of the new film Project Hail Mary. Banowsky said the theater's screen has long been rumored to be the largest in Santa Fe, if not the state. Before the soft opening, Banowsky made sure Sky Midtown was equipped with a Dolby Surround 7.1 sound system and installed stadium-style seating with extra legroom.
Sky Cinemas Midtown has also been preparing to add a cozy, 26-seat theater called The Screening Room. The Screening Room will be available for lease by independent filmmakers interested in screening their films in a professional environment. Sky Midtown cinema hours are generated automatically, based on the showtime schedule. The cinema opens 30 minutes before the first film of the day and closes 1 hour after the last film concludes. Peter Grendle, the Sky Cinemas program and marketing director, ran the old campus theater, The Screen, for about a decade. Talking about Sky Midtown, Grendle said: "If you look at the history of movie theaters, they function more like carnivals with high-priced popcorn, right?"
Sky Cinemas Midtown is located within Aspect Media Village, a re-envisioning of the former campus of The Santa Fe University of Art and Design. Aspect Media Village is a 23-acre film-focused development on land that was once home to two universities: the College of Santa Fe, and later, The Santa Fe University of Art and Design. The marquee over the Sky Cinemas Midtown entrance reads La Rana Coffee 8AM and Free Family Movie Sunday 1230. Outside Sky Midtown, the patio has gray wooden picnic tables under red umbrellas behind a dark railing, with a beige multistory building across the way.
Sky Midtown is also home to La Rana Coffee, open 8 AM to 3 PM daily.
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