Pedal on in: Café near Old Town caters to cyclists

Visiting Old Town Farm is like entering another world.

Despite being only 50 yards south of I-40, near Rio Grande Boulevard NW, the farm is surpassingly tranquil. Huge cottonwood trees help wall off the 12-acre property from the outside world. Snaking through the trees are centuries-old irrigation ditches that provide sustenance for fields where bees levitate over snapdragons and sunflowers.

Pedal on in: Café near Old Town caters to cyclists

In the midst of this verdant setting sits Bike In Coffee, one of the city’s most unique cafés.

As the name suggests, the café is set up for cyclists, with easy access to the I-40 and the bosque bike trails. Drivers are welcome too, but parking is limited.

Linda Thorne and Lanny Tonning launched Old Town Farm in 1977 as a horse facility and produce farm. They added Bike In Coffee as a weekend-only operation in 2012. Today it’s open five days a week for breakfast and lunch.

The café is set in a handsome wooden building with a cupola poking up from the center of the sloping, corrugated metal roof. Tables and counter seating line the wraparound porch. More seating is available in a large, covered patio behind the building, where colorful streams of papel picado frame the view of the flower and produce gardens.

Approaching the farm from the very narrow Montoya Street off Mountain Road NW, I felt a bit guilty about driving to a bike-in place; guilt that eased when I saw numerous other cars parked in the shaded spaces along the right side of the road. I grabbed the last available space and headed to the café, located just west of the parking area behind a wooden entryway crowned, naturally, with a bicycle. Across the way, a jazz band played for a couple dozen people sitting at tables in the shade.

Bike In’s menu from chef David Reyes is listed on chalkboards out front and by the window where you order. Food prices range from $7 to $13. Offerings like chilaquiles, burritos and tacos reflect the chef’s Mexican roots.

Among the Chef’s Specials are two different pozoles ($12): a red one with pork and a green one with mushrooms. My friend and resident pozole authority ordered the red version. Served in a broad, blue-striped bowl, it had lots of tender chunks of pork and hominy and a broth that hummed with spice.

The other soup on the menu that day was a special of Cucumber Mango ($12). Purple threads of balsamic vinaigrette were stitched through a cold, tan-colored broth filled with bits of mango and cucumber. At once tart and cooling, it’s a great antidote for the hot weather. Alas, it was not available on my second visit.

The menu offers a handful of tacos priced at $4 each. The first day I was there, there was a special of three tacos for $9. All the ones I tried were good, with thoughtful pairings of proteins, veggies and sauce. Among the battered and fried options was a taco that matched a couple of plump shrimp with a sweet and savory mango slaw. The fish tacos pair swai, a mild-flavored, firm-fleshed catfish that is farmed in Vietnam, with aioli and a crunchy slaw of cabbage and peppers. Tempura battering left a thin, shatteringly crisp armor around creamy slices of avocado in one of the two vegetarian tacos.

The two meat versions were similarly excellent. The diced meat in the Carne Asada taco and the chunks of pork in the Carnitas version were tender and the guacamole sauce added a sour charge.

Chilaquiles ($12) arrived in an oval-shaped bowl with buttery, gooey Oaxacan cheese and crumbly, salty cotija cheese. The dish was visually dull but flavorful, with the red chile sauce at the bottom softening up the chips. It was crying out for some avocado to brighten it up. You can add an egg to it for $1.50.

I was looking forward to trying the crepes on my first visit, but the crepe maker was not there that day. He was back for my next visit, so I tried the Apple Cajeta ($12) version. The two crepes were wrapped around diced apples in cajeta, the Mexican caramel sauce made with goat’s milk, and topped with whipped cream and a couple of apple slices. The whole thing was a bit like a deconstructed caramel apple, except that the cajeta was more syrupy than gummy. A very tasty, well-executed presentation.

If the crepes aren’t enough for your sweet tooth, there is a section of the menu dedicated to desserts like churros, carrot cake and cookies. For a lighter option, I tried Watermelon with Chamoy ($7), a Mexican condiment made with dried fruit, chiles and lime. Served in a plastic container with a wedge of lime, it consisted of about a dozen big, juicy blocks of watermelon with a cup of chamoy on top. Texturally, the paste-like chamoy and the watermelon weren’t an ideal match, but the chamoy’s complex, assertive mix of salty, sweet, sour and spicy really augmented the much more subtle flavor of the fruit.

Tea and coffee options include a house blend, cold brew and matcha latte. I ordered a Café de Olla ($4), Mexican spiced coffee, and was handed a cup and directed to a bank of urns on the patio. The coffee, flavored with cinnamon and slightly sweetened with brown sugar, was decent if past its prime.

Other drink options include a terrific Lemonade ($3), more sour than sweet, and a Berry Green Smoothie ($8) made with oat milk and Greek yogurt and sweetened with blue agave. It was quite tart and refreshing, and largely free of the seeds normally found in berry smoothies.

The counter staff was friendly and able to answer all the questions we could throw at them. There is no table service; instead, you pick up your order at a side window when your name is called. Both times, the food came out in five to 10 minutes. There are some gluten-free options, but they are not marked on the menus.

Halfway through my first meal at Bike In Coffee, I saw chef Reyes roaming the gardens out back to gather some veggies for the kitchen. It was a reminder that farm-to-table is not just a marketing slogan here. The chef has built a quality menu that provides another reason to visit one of the most serene, idyllic settings in the city.