Southwestern-style green chile breakfast burritos land in Williamsburg

By Scott Lynch

There’s a lot of love going on at Santa Fe BK, a brand new restaurant in the heart of Williamsburg that’s currently slinging takeout breakfast burritos in the morning, takeout cheeseburgers at lunch, and, as soon as co-owners John Watterberg and Melissa Klein can start pouring their double margaritas, will be serving a full menu for dinner at the bar and in the dining room inside.

There’s a deep love for green chiles here, for starters, those highly addictive, slightly pungent, slightly sweet, slightly spicy peppers—often called Hatch chiles—which give New Mexican food its unique character. “I’m originally from Albuquerque,” Watterberg tells Brooklyn Magazine, “and this is my family’s culture, heritage, and cuisine.”

The Santa Fe BK’s breakfast burritos are loaded with these beauties, along with egg and crumbles of housemade sausage (or bacon, or potato; this part’s up to you), and they are fantastic. You might say to yourself, upon opening your burrito sack, “oh I just need some hot sauce.” You don’t. There’s so much flavor here, and the chiles are so naturally juicy, it’s perfect the way it is.

No heat needed (Scott Lynch)

The flour tortillas come courtesy of the custom-made commercial press from BE&SCO, which Watterberg says is one of only two such machines on the East Coast.

Green Chile Breakfast Burrito with sausage ($9) (Scott Lynch)

Green chiles are piled high on the Santa Fe BK cheeseburger as well, a four-ounce patty cooked medium rare and smothered in a messy amount of melted Swiss and American. It’s a satisfying sandwich that also needs no sauce of any kind, though the crock of ketchup comes in handy if you get a side of the crisp, salty crinkle fries.

Green Chile Cheeseburger ($9) with fries ($3)  (Scott Lynch)

The burrito and burger window will remain open during the day even after Santa Fe BK opens for dinner, which will happen the second they get their liquor license. Watterberg’s core skill is as a bartender, and in addition to margaritas (“silver and citrus and sec, hand-mulled”), he has a lineup of cocktails ready to go, with names like The Dornishman’s Wife (“passionfruit serrano, smoke), and Alyssa’s Tears (“vodka, elderflower, pear”).

We got a sneak peek at the work-in-progress dinner menu too, which is tightly focused and stars dishes like enchiladas and smothered burritos stuffed with your choice of green chile chicken, pork adovada, picadillo, or beans. A version of the green chile cheeseburger and a presumably hearty mac n’ queso will likely also be available at night. New Mexican red chiles—which are just the green chiles, ripened, which adds a bit of earthiness and more heat to proceedings—will be deployed after dark as well.

Klein is responsible for most of the recipes. “I am an enthusiastic home cook,” she says. “During the early pandemic we sort of flew the coop from New York and found ourselves in Arizona for like four months and so I had access to all those Southwestern ingredients that I needed, and I had more space than I have in our tiny little Brooklyn kitchen to do menu experimentation. It was a great opportunity for us to figure it out. Every day I got up and just cooked and cooked and cooked.”

Which brings us back to the other great love story at Santa Fe BK. “Melissa and I met and fell in love at a restaurant called Santa Fe over on Union Street about 14 years ago,” says Watterberg. “It was one of the best summers of our lives, lots of margaritas in the yard, lots of kissing all night long under the tree, and we kind of dreamt ever since of recreating that environment.” As fate would have it, Santa Fe BK, which occupies both the former Pearl’s Caribbean and Calypso Bar spaces on North 8th Street, has a beautiful old tree out back, which they’ll open to diners in the spring, and seems ideal for kissing under.

The couple, who still live in Williamsburg and now have two kids, also hope to build something meaningful at Santa Fe BK. “We are basically going to train the staff to do every job in the house,” says Watterberg, “so there’s a fundamental understanding of everyone’s value and importance. We are going to pay people living and dignified wages, at an intense cost to house, but it’s important that if we’re going to come back after the pandemic, and try and build something out of it. We have to do better. We have to build it back better.”

(Scott Lynch)

Santa Fe BK is located at 178 North 8th Street, just south of Bedford Avenue, and is currently open every day at 8:00 a.m. for burritos, at 11:00 a.m. for cheeseburgers, and dinner as soon as possible