The Santa Fe Cookie Company Comes to the Golden Triangle

The Santa Fe Cookie Company has been an oasis of sweet relief downtown for 32 years, first under founder Deborah Kuehn, known to her customers as the Cookie Lady, and then under Kuehn's niece, Alexis McLean, who reopened the honor-system bakery after her aunt passed away last year. McLean is an artist as well as a baker, so she's expanded the business to the Golden Triangle Creative District with a new art gallery and cookie shop called Black Crow Gallery, which opened at 144 West 12th Avenue last month.

The Republic Plaza bakery, at 303 16th Street, is still the primary outlet for confections, with wide variety of cookies and other baked goods McLean makes every weekday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. But for those in need of an afternoon fix, Black Crow sells cookies from 3:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, with additional hours from 6 to 9 p.m. during Final Fridays. Just look for the Santa Fe Cookie Company logo in the window; it's an original, hand-painted sign, so it's appropriate that it now graces an art gallery.

In addition to cookies, Black Crow will display McLean's own creations and the work of other artists (catch the opening of “The Red Shoes: My Invisible Companion,” an exhibit by photographer Gunnar Conrad, from 5 to 9 p.m. on Friday, July 13). The gallery also sells products from local artisans Clearwater Farms Soap, Little Flower Hemp Company, A Touch of Cardamom and Fine Art Notecards.

McLean's aunt began selling cookies in 1986 on the Auraria campus before moving downtown to a space behind what was then Duffy's Shamrock at 16th and Court streets, and eventually to the Republic Plaza spot in 2008. The bakery closed in June 2017 after Keuhn's death; McLean reopened the Santa Fe Cookie Company in October 2017, adding some of her own recipes and Kaladi coffee to the mix. You can now find more than ten original cookie flavors, plus gluten-free options and daily specials in the form of cupcakes, brownies, coffee cake and scones.