During our trip to Sedona, my wife and I were exploring the Tlaquepaque (te-LOCK-a-POCK-a) Arts & Shopping Village on the south side of the city. It was around 6 p.m. and we decided we wanted a drink. We found a little place near the north entrance of the outdoor mall and sat at the small bar just inside the door. Upon talking with the bartender, we found that the place served breakfast, lunch and light dinner. We decided to go back later in the week for breakfast at The Secret Garden Cafe.
Tlaquepaque Arts & Shopping Village has been around since the 1970's, the vision of Nevada businessman Abe Miller who loved to vacation in Sedona. Miller acquired an acreage that ran along Oak Creek and started to develop the plot of land into a living artists community with shops and restaurants that were similar to small town squares in Mexico. He enlisted the help of Bob McIntyre, a somewhat unconventional architect who traveled to Mexico with Miller to get an idea of the tree-lined town squares in small towns that Miller had hoped Tlaquepaque would turn into at some point.
As I said, McIntyre was a bit unusual in his approach and he hired inexperienced workers to plaster walls and make the ornate columns - similar to the centuries-old Spanish-colonial architecture they found in their travels to Mexico. Plus he just had workers start building on the site without any plans or blueprints. McIntyre gave the workers a lot of latitude, even allowing them to stop and tear down a wall if it wasn't to their liking. The first building was turned out to be the modern day El Rincon Mexican restaurant in the village. From there, more buildings were built, courtyards were formed and Tlaquepaque became a popular destination for people living in and visiting Sedona.
The Secret Garden Cafe has been in business since the early 2000's, but for the past 15 years has been owned and operated by Robin Russell. Her son Kyle Thumwood started out as a teenager working in the restaurant as a busboy. He eventually became a server, then a coffee barista, then eventually the assistant general manager of the restaurant. While he was working at The Secret Garden Cafe, Thumwood was also going through the restaurant management program at nearby Northern Arizona University. After a short stint as an assistant manager at a restaurant in the Vail/Beaver Creek ski resort area in Colorado, Thumwood moved back to Sedona to become the general manager of The Secret Garden Cafe in May of 2022.
Pictured right - Robin Russell and Kyle Thumwood. Photo courtesy The Secret Garden Cafe Facebook page.
My wife and I had gone on a trail walk just south of Sedona the morning we went back to The Secret Garden Cafe. We parked in one of the parking areas around Tlaquepaque and walked through the courtyard stopping off to check out the small rose garden that was near the entrance of the little restaurant. (see map)
Entering The Secret Garden Cafe was the small bar area with about three tables along a wall with banquette seating and a couple more high-top tables that looked out onto the patio. The bar was where my wife and I sat and had a drink on our previous visit talking with the bartender who gave us a lot of good recommendations where to eat while we were in Sedona.
Down a short hallway, it emptied out into a larger patio area with large cross beams with wooden slats on top. The cross beams were held up by ornate columns. A number of wire-topped tables were positioned on top of brick flooring.
They tried to use all the available space around The Secret Garden Cafe and they set up more tables along a narrow stretch of the patio on the side of the building. I have to say the craftsmanship of the buildings at Tlaquepaque certainly fooled me at first thinking that it was an ancient village that was built centuries ago, sort of like what we saw in Santa Fe and in Albuquerque. I was very surprised to learn that the arts and entertainment village was just a tad over 50 years old.
We were seated at a table that was along a walkway, sort of the back entrance to The Secret Garden Cafe next to a small patch of grass opposite the walkway. Our server that day was a spunky lady by the name of Jenn. She gave us the breakfast menus to look through. My wife immediately ordered a coffee and I ordered four shots of espresso, straight up.
Jenn brought my wife's coffee out immediately and told me the barista was making my espresso. She left to do some other duties and to bring out my espresso. About five minutes later, she brought the espresso to the table. As she set it down, she knocked the small cup over and it spilled through the wire-topped table onto my right leg. Now, it had cooled a bit from when it was first poured into the cup, but it was still hot. Not scalding hot, but "get-your-attention" hot. It spilled onto my shorts, down my leg and onto my mesh-material shoes. It was a mess.
And Jenn was absolutely horrified. She began to apologize profusely using the available napkins on the table to try to wipe up the spilled espresso on my leg. She later brought out a cold wet towel to have me put on my leg to try and stem any burns that I may have gotten. But as I said, it had cooled down enough when it was served to me - or, I should say, served ON me - that they escaped any legal ramifications. She brought me out another quad-shot and this time she made sure that she didn't spill it.
The food served at The Secret Garden Cafe is locally-sourced and organically-grown when possible. The eggs they serve are from cage-free hens and the breads they serve are made fresh each day without any preservatives. This was the kind of restaurant my wife loves. Me? As long as it all tastes good, I'm fine with it.
My wife also loved the fact that they had vegan and gluten-free foods on their menu. She considered the egg-whites omelette with onions, spinach, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese; as well as the scrambled eggs with roasted tomatoes, fresh rosemary and cream cheese.
In the end, she went with the quiche of the day - a slice of the vegetable quiche with feta cheese. Fried potatoes usually come as a side with the quiche, but Jenn told my wife that they had a mixed fruit offering that she signed up for. My wife categorized her breakfast as "perfect".
The breakfast menu was pretty short - they had a much larger lunch/dinner menu that they started serving around 11:30 each day. I thought about getting the croissant sandwich with scrambled eggs, ham and cheddar cheese. But then I saw the French toast - three slices of thick-sliced sourdough dipped in a Grand Marnier-infused batter, then grilled and finally lightly dusted with powdered sugar. Peppered bacon came on the side with the French toast.
When I ordered the French toast, Jenn said, "Good choice. That's my favorite breakfast item on our menu." And the French toast was very good. I'm not certain that I could taste any of the Grand Marnier flavor in the batter, but it gave me an idea for my homemade French toast in the future. The thick cut peppered bacon was also a great complement to the breakfast.
Other than having four shots of espresso spilled on me, Jenn did a great job in taking care of us. She continued to apologize throughout our time at The Secret Garden Cafe and she comped me the espresso since she spilled the first one. I had to wash my shoes at the hotel and I was able to get the stains out of the athletic-style shorts I had on that day, so it turned out OK. My wife loved her vegetarian quiche along with the fruit plate that came with her breakfast. And the French toast was very good. I would have liked to have gone back for lunch at The Secret Garden Cafe, but there were just so many restaurant options in Sedona that we never did make it back. Maybe we'll do that the next time we get back out to Sedona.