This Santa Fe gem is unpretentious and welcoming…The Tune-Up Cafe in Santa Fe is partly self-service, and the food is delicious.

Jesus and Charlotte Rivera … stirred some imagination into the bar’s offerings, pouring a short list of sake-based cocktails ($6), including a Bloody Mary, as well as more creative concoctions like the green tea lemongrass-ginger combo, or “Japanese Cobbler”, which combines fresh pineapple  orange juice and cherry juice with sake and a hint of champagne.

2009-2010 Santa Fe Reporter Restaurant of the Year
The simple, hearty food and the resulting pleasure is spreading like a pandemic…

If you are looking for a very casual, slightly cramped, unpretentious cafe’ that serves up
satisfying, well-known and also very unique cuisine, then the Tune-Up Cafe’ will not disappoint.

Tune-Up is the city’s favorite new restaurant for two big reasons.
First, it rocks. It’s cute, comfortable, casual, affordable, funky, fun and, oh yeah, the food kicks ass.

“Tiny in size but mighty in flavor”

“Tables of Texans have appeared cranky on discovering that Dave’s famed burgers and chile rellenos have withered, like Dave himself, into mythological tumbleweed, but then been heartened to find better versions of both dishes available at Tune-Up”

Burgers are excellent; Atmosphere is unpretentious in the extreme;
Definitely worth a return visit

What distinguishes this menu from most others is a notable El Salvadoran influence.
The place is light and airy. Outside, a sunny patio table allows for soaking in the spring sun.

I like the Tune-Up Cafe’. This new restaurant is simple and unpretentious, friendly and inviting.
Tune-Up Cafe’ features a menu that fits the cozy space, a small but delicious assortment of American favorites, New Mexican choices and a few Salvadoran touches. It has a stay-and-sit-a-spell ambiance.

The house-ground beef on the “Dave Was Here Burger” was tasty and delicious; a two-hander that was better than I remember its namesake being. The desserts are house-made as well. If you don’t have time to try the old-fashioned banana-spice cupcakes filled with custard and topped with cream cheese icing (yum!), grab one of the dense peanut butter cookie sandwiches stuffed with Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread. They are killer.

The breakfast menu reads like New Orleans (fresh fruit stuffed French toast) meets New Mexico (breakfast burrito)and El Salvador (Huevos El Salvadorenos). Who wouldn’t want to wake up to such delicious options The lunch menu pays a playful mark of respect to its predecessor tenant with a burger named “Dave Was Here,” a burger that feels strangely familiar. It is one of three burgers on the menu, including a vegan made burger–the brown rice nut burger, a housemade patty served on a brioche bun.