Iconik Coffee Roasters

Café / Coffee Shop

Local Hero: An Interview with Sean Ham, Owner
Photos by Douglas Merriam

Iconik is a specialty coffee roaster that operates amazing cafés in Santa Fe. Both their Lena Street coffeehouse and Iconik Lupe are the kind of places you can nestle alone with a book or meet an old college roommate. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner, offer a wide selection of specialty teas, and bake their delicious pastries in-house. You’ve also likely sampled their coffee in hotels and fine restaurants throughout New Mexico, including Ojo Caliente, Ojo Santa Fe, Ten Thousand Waves, El Rey hotel, Izanami, Paloma, the Pantry restaurants, and many more. What’s next for Iconik? “We’ve got some great things coming to the community in 2022–23, so be on the lookout,” hints owner Sean Ham.

Iconik is often credited with bringing now-ubiquitous third-wave coffee to Santa Fe back in 2013. How has coffee sourcing, roasting, and brewing evolved since then?

They’ve all improved with time, for the most part. For coffee sourcing, it’s still difficult to know what you’re really getting without a direct relationship with the grower. That’s why we’re eager to restart our trips with managers and baristas to travel to coffee-growing regions to develop those direct relationships. Roasting has evolved to be more systematized so we can ensure consistency without losing craft quality, and brewing has continued to be refined so we can deliver better and better coffee to each guest each day.

Iconik’s spaces—Lupe’s atrium-like dining area in an old Catholic school and the eclectic interior and patio at the Lena Street Lofts location—make dining and coffee drinking a unique sensory experience. What’s the secret to creating a space that makes people want to return again and again?

The secret is taking the time to prepare the space, layering details so there’s always something new to discover, a friendly face to greet you, and commitment to theme and mission. For Iconik, that mission is connecting customers to their coffee, community, and each other. Thoughtfulness and the time we take with each space helps us achieve that mission.

Your menus, with their sophisticated flavors and old-fashioned indulgences, are another reason people love Iconik. How do you balance catering to visitor tastes with satisfying your local following?

We just focus on making incredible food. Our dishes are inspired by the places we visit to source coffee as well as the unique and varied culinary backgrounds of our staff. Sometimes you just want a really good eggs benedict; other times, you want Korean street tacos. Whether you’re a local or a visitor, both of those sound great!

What are some of the coffee trends Iconik anticipates bringing to its customers in the coming months?

We plan on bringing some exciting new tech to our cafés to create consistent and amazing by-the-cup coffees, unlike anything other cafés have done before.

What coffee-sourcing issue is most important to you now?

Green coffee quality. It’s dropped quite a bit while prices have gone up. The world is under a lot of pressure with the leftover consequences of COVID shutdowns, war, and civil unrest. As a result, farming is suffering and quality has gone down.

What should people know about Iconik that they probably don’t?

That we spend an inordinate amount of time on everything we do, from coffee sourcing, roasting, and brewing to our food and baked goods recipes. We really pride ourselves on making sure our offerings are approachable to all while satisfying the adventurous.

Anything else you’d like to share with edible readers?

We’re honored to receive this award from edible. It’s one that we’ve strived for, and we’re really happy to receive it this year!

1600 Lena and 314 S Guadalupe, Santa Fe, iconikcoffee.com