November 22 – Plata Coffee has been around for six years, but this month the company finally found a location big enough for their café to flourish.
Aaron Ketner and his wife Rose Kerkmans moved their coffee shop Plata to Los Ranchos in November, realizing their dream of being a real neighborhood café.
“I really loved the thought of regular customers,” Kerkmans said.
Plata’s first home was a small space Downtown at Eighth and Silver on the bottom floor of an apartment building.
“That walnut countertop was our very first countertop,” Ketner said. The countertop in question is in a corner of the new cafe, the smallest of all the new surfaces in their new store in Los Ranchos.
Before landing their dream place in Los Ranchos, the couple moved to Sawmill Marketplace near Old Town in 2019
“That’s where we really need to grow,” Ketner said.
Sawmill exposed them to a busy tourist market, but over the four years at Sawmill, they began to miss the regulars, just like Downtown.
In the downtown area they had five regular customers who came every day, Kerkmans said.
That’s why they started looking for a new location almost two years ago.
“Albuquerque is difficult because everywhere you go there seems to be a coffee shop,” Kerkmans said.
Los Ranchos turned out to be a good choice, as there was no coffee shop nearby to compete with and it was close to Ketner’s day job in architecture. The couple often went to a brewery, Steel Bender Brewyard, next door to what would become the future home of their dream pub.
“We went to Steel Bender for beer and I said, ‘That place is probably way too expensive,’” Ketner joked.
Ketner finally took the chance to make an offer and in November 2024 they opened.
“There was an older couple from the next street over and they brought a board game and we thought that’s exactly what we haven’t had,” Ketner said.
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Plata offers a changing selection of locally roasted coffee. This quarter they have Iconik, from a coffee roaster in Santa Fe.
They’ve had 16 burners over the years and “we haven’t had a repeat yet,” Ketner said.
Residents in this community may have never tried some of these smaller local coffee roasters and Ketner is proud to introduce them to the neighborhood.
Ketner’s love for coffee began when he worked at the Humble Coffee Company near the University of New Mexico while completing his degree.
His favorite coffee order is an Americano, a drink made with just espresso and water, and Kerkmans’ coffee order is a honey latte.
If coffee isn’t your thing, Plata also works with local tea sellers. They are currently working with Moons Coffee and Tea, a local mother-daughter duo, and tea.o.graphy in Taos.
“We have phenomenal coffee from phenomenal companies and we do this in an accessible way,” says Kerkmans.
Plata Coffee is located at 8325 Second St. NW in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.
