Giving Formerly Incarcerated Workers a Second Chance in the Kitchen

In November 2024 Miguel Tapia, 48, was released from the Penitentiary of New Mexico in Santa Fe after nearly 15 years behind bars on a drug-trafficking conviction. 

Now he’s working as a prep and line cook at Escondido, a Santa Fe restaurant opened this past August and owned by Chef Fernando Ruiz, a former inmate himself. Interviewed a few days out of prison, Tapia says his transition to life after...