THE HILLSBORO GENERAL Store Cafe has been many things in its 147 years: a dry goods store; a bank; a drugstore; a relief center during the Great Depression, when handwritten ledgers of what the town owed were kept in the cabinets that still line the walls. Ben Lewis, who bought the place with his wife, Doreen, in 1995, found those records when they arrived, including a line item where a longtime resident’s father still owed $12.75 from the Depression era. Lewis told the resident they’d call the matter settled.
The 1879 adobe sits low along NM 152. Inside, hardwood floors worn smooth by generations of foot traffic lead past walls crowded with evidence of every iteration of the place. Ninette Miller, wife of the drugstore-era owner, painted murals of tigers and pharaohs directly on the walls. An antique cash register sits on the counter.
“We never thought of ourselves as owners,” Lewis says. “We always felt like we were caretakers.”
That sense of stewardship helped earn the cafe a $50,000 grant last fall through the Backing Historic Small Restaurants initiative, founded by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in partnership with American Express.
Eighty percent of the funds go toward exterior improvements, including new signage, an accessible entrance, expanded outdoor seating, and trimming two sycamore trees. “It validated all the effort Doreen and I had dedicated to the food we served,” Lewis says.
The Hillsboro General Store Cafe displays its history.
Photograph by Rebecca Rutherford.
The grant also arrives at a moment of transition. After four years as a line cook, Meghan Kinney bought the cafe from the Lewises late last year. A former corporate chef, she took a pandemic sabbatical in Hillsboro and never left. “I didn’t even last a month before I was bored,” Kinney says. “So I responded to the Help Wanted sign in the window.”
When she decided to buy the place, the community showed up. A GoFundMe covered much of the purchase price. Kinney is moving slowly, tweaking chile and beans to be vegan-friendly, sourcing local sourdough bread from Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences, and using weekend specials as a test kitchen. “I hope it continues to be a community hub,” she says, “and that I can put a bit of my own style and personality into the business.”
On a Saturday, locals weave between tables and visitors linger over coffee. The signature 152 Pile Up arrives as advertised: beans, chile, potatoes, and eggs stacked on a fresh tortilla. Kinney’s lunch special, a Korean chicken bowl with cucumber salad, is proof that the menu of New Mexican and diner classics has room to grow.
The town is in a small renaissance, Lewis says, with younger people moving in, a Saturday market in the park, and music gatherings taking root. But he is clear that without the General Store, Hillsboro would be a ghost town.
Kinney’s motto, for anyone expecting fast service on a busy Sunday, says most of what needs to be said: “If you’re in a hurry, you should have been here yesterday.” The Lewises’ mission statement says the rest: “Be the place you hope you’ll find when you wander off the beaten path.”
