Category: Gone But Not Forgotten

AlbuquerqueAmericanBreakfastBrunchClosed in 2017Diners Drive-Ins and DivesDog FriendlyFood Network Eats New MexicoGone But Not ForgottenRating: Outstanding

Eli’s Place (formerly Sophia’s Place) – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:49 AM

NOTE: In March, 2018, Sophia’s Place reopened.  Please click here for the updated review. Picture yourself as a first-year marketing student assigned by your professor to perform a marketing analysis of Eli’s Place and its enigmatic chef-owner Dennis Apodaca. Essentially you’ve got to figure out the rhyme and reason behind the restaurant’s success. “Easy assignment,” you think to yourself, “Eli’s Place is successful because it serves some of the best, most delicious food in Albuquerque.” Your research quickly reveals, however, that Eli’s Place actually violates many of the time-honored, trusted and fundamental marketing tenets of growing and successful businesses. From a marketing perspective, it just shouldn’t work as well as it does. Any Marketing 101 student can tell you, for example, the importance of brand identity. A brand is one of the most valuable and important assets of a restaurant. It needs to be carefully cultivated to ensure it properly and authentically reflects the values, attributes and passions of a business. Eli’s Place received an enormous boost to its brand identity in 2008 when the Food Network came calling. Being featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives is generally worth a fortune to any restaurant. So what does Dennis Apodaca do?…

Closed in 2018Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicanNew Mexico

Los Chavez Cafe – Belen, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:25 PM

Vamos todos a Belen Con amor y gozo. Translated from Spanish, those words–lyrics to a traditional New Mexican nativity song–mean “Let’s all go to Bethlehem with love and joy.” In villages and cities throughout Northern New Mexico, peregrines sing that song as they reverently process from house-to-house reenacting the Gospel of Luke account of Mary and Joseph and their search for shelter. Peregrines repeat their search every night during the nine days preceding Christmas, culminating with Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Known as “Las Posadas” this Catholic tradition often incorporates farolitos, lighted candles weighted with sand in paper bags which light the way for the peregrines and the Christ child yet to be born. You couldn’t blame the Belen Chamber of Commerce if they ever decide to co-opt the lyrics “Vamos todos a Belen con amor y gozo.” It would make a great marketing campaign, an invitation to visit the “Hub City” with love and joy. While some of us may not associate love and joy with a visit to Belen, New Mexico, there’s much to love about the second most populous city in Valencia County. If you regard Belen as solely a place en route to somewhere else, you’re…

AmericanClosed in 2023Gone But Not ForgottenSanta Fe

Loyal Hound Pub – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno9:31 AM

“It’s me or the dog!” That’s the ultimatum my friend Eric was given by his then-fiancee. It was one of several augurs of an ill-fated marriage only my friend with the rose-colored-glasses failed to see. Three years later as the divorce was finalized, Eric tearfully realized he had made the wrong decision. A dog’s loyalty can never be questioned. A spouse’s eyes and heart can–and often do–wander as had been the case in this troubled marriage. Psychology professor Stanley Coren correctly postulated that “the greatest fear dogs know is the fear that you will not come back when you go out the door without them.” You can only imagine the heartbreak Pepper, Eric’s dog, felt when left in the care of strangers. Dogs don’t abandon their owners. They love us unconditionally and are unfailingly loyal even when we don’t deserve it. For those of us whose lives have been enriched by dogs, the term “man’s best friend” doesn’t come close to describing the bond we share. For many of us, dogs are four-legged children. David Readyhough and Renee Fox love their dog Lola so much that they wanted to name their restaurant after her. After agreeing that “Lola” sounded like…

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Casa Diaz – Bernalillo, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno11:01 PM

The siren song of a small town living has always appealed to Irma Rodriguez who just can’t see herself in the big city. Having grown up in Gallup, New Mexico, she appreciates the sense of community–the extended family feeling of really getting to know her neighbors. It’s an attitude she imparts to guests at Casa Diaz Mexican and American Grill, the Bernalillo restaurant she and husband Jesus launched in August, 2016. For her, the term “locally owned and operated” is deeply rooted, a reflection of her upbringing in and around family owned and operated restaurants in Gallup. Irma’s grandmother served for decades as the tortillera at the legendary Jerry’s Cafe in Gallup. Later when Irma herself worked at Jerry’s, she assimilated the day-to-day nuances of running the most popular independent restaurant in the Heart of Navajo Country. In particular, she observed as the restaurant’s staff inculcated a customer-oriented attitude. The lessons she learned are inscribed in her restaurant’s operational model on the Web site’s “About Us” page: “We strive to give you a fresh meal that’s similar to being home cooked. When you are at Casa Diaz we treat you like family because that’s what you are to us. We…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2018Gone But Not ForgottenSandwich

Petra Restaurant & Times Square Deli Mart – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno10:58 PM

As the clock approaches midnight every year on December 31st, the eyes of the world are focused on a single geodesic sphere some twelve-feet in diameter and weighing nearly six tons. Covered with nearly 3,000 Waterford Crystal triangles, that sphere descends slowly down a flagpole at precisely twelve o’clock, signaling the transition to a new year. The event is witnessed by more than a billion people across the world, including more than one million who crowd the area to bid a collective adieu to the year just completed and to express hope and joy for the upcoming year. This event takes place in Midtown Manhattan’s fabled Times Square, oft called the “crossroads of the world.” Contrast the bustling energy and modernity of Time Square with the sedate tranquility of the ancient city of Petra in the Middle Eastern nation of Jordan. Inhabited from 312 BC through the 1980s, Petra, a vast, unique city, carved into sheer red rock face, is most often spoken of in historical terms and indeed, much history has transpired in Petra. Petra served as a center of trade between Arabia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean though today it is more often recognized for its cameo…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2017Gone But Not ForgottenItalianPizzaSandwich

Bricklight Dive – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

If we really are what we eat, I’m fast, cheap and easy. Fast, cheap and easy. That would certainly describe the stereotypical college diet, especially for freshmen. On their own for the first time, freshmen eat what they want when they want it. They load up their trays with junk food in heaping helpings so mountainous it would make Dagwood Bumstead envious. They fuel marathon study sessions with sugary snacks. Exercise consists of sixteen-ounce curls, clicking the remote and fork lifts. It’s no wonder the “freshman fifteen” myth–the belief that many college students pack on 15 pounds during their first year at school–exists. A study out of Oregon State University concluded that college students are not eating enough fruits, vegetables and fiber in their diets (not even close) and that both male and female students derived more than 30 percent of their calories from fatty foods. Not since an internet security company revealed that the most common computer password is “123456” has such an obvious nugget been divulged. Anyone who’s attended college knows that students pretty much survive on anything they can get their hands on. It’s also much easier to drive through the nearest grab and gobble emporium than…

Closed in 2016Gone But Not ForgottenMariscosMexicanNew MexicoRio Rancho

Mariscos Mazatlan – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:39 PM

A rotund, ripening, red tomato is featured prominently on license plates issued in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. This is indicative of the state’s prominence in growing the “love apples” from which its rich salsas are made. In 2013, Sinaloa exported nearly one-billion tons of vegetables–primarily tomatoes–across the fruited plain, netting (mostly industrial) farmers nearly one-billion dollars. More than half the tomatoes consumed across the United States during the winter season are, in fact, grown in Sinaloa. While Sinaloan tomatoes are indeed sweet, juicy, meaty and delicious, an argument could easily be made that a more worthy subject for the state’s license plates would be mariscos, the bounty of the sea extricated from the azure waters of the Bay of Cortez. With nearly four hundred miles of spectacular, varied and fecund coastland, Sinaloa is brimming with some of the finest, most delectable seafood available anywhere on Planet Earth. Waters teeming with an assortment of delicacies from the sea are especially bountiful during winter months when pescados y mariscos (fish and shellfish) are at their at their peak of freshness. The variety of seafood options can boggle the mind, especially in the restaurants of Mazatlán, the most popular beach town destination…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2017Food Network Eats New MexicoGone But Not ForgottenLatin AmericanNew MexicoRating: OutstandingRestaurant Impossible

Pasion Latin Fusion – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:19 PM

“In my experience, food and passion always intertwine. Passion is food for the soul’s mood at any particular time.” Tammy Mollai Robert Irvine, host of the Food Network’s Restaurant: Impossible show has some nerve! In an episode which first aired in March, 2014, the tough-talking British mesomorph had the audacity to tell America that Pasion Latin Fusion wasn’t the beautiful, graceful swan with which many of us had fallen in love. Although he didn’t directly call Pasion an ugly duckling paddling about aimlessly, Irvine certainly intimated that things at Pasion weren’t as rosy as some of us may have thought. The premise of Restaurant: Impossible is that within two days and on a budget of $10,000, Irvine will transform a failing American restaurant with the goal of helping to restore it to profitability and prominence. To make the show entertaining, any existing dysfunction or drama in the restaurant’s day-to-day operations is spotlighted in the fashion of all reality shows. If you’ve ever been to Pasion Latin Fusion, words like failure, dysfunction and drama won’t ever come to mind. Since its launch in 2011, reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, much moreso than reviews for other “failing” restaurants featured on Restaurant: Impossible.…

AlbuquerqueAmericanBar & GrillClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenNew Mexico

Bosque Brewing Company – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:38 PM

NOTE: The Bosque Brewing Company has six locations including two in Las Cruces and one in Bernalillo.  Only the location in San Mateo reviewed here has closed. In 1978, the number of breweries across the fruited plain had fallen to an all-time, post-Prohibition low of 89. That year President Jimmy Carter signed into law, a bill that legalized home brewing on a national level. Since the craft brewing market began to pick up steam in the mid- to late-1980s there has been no surcease in sight. Today, there are more than 2,500 breweries operating across the United States with another 1,500 breweries in the planning stage. According to the Brewers Association, as of 2013 the craft beer industry experienced double-digit growth four straight years in both dollar sales and volume. So what accounts for such growth in popularity of local beer? Experts theorize that similar to the locavore trend in the culinary world, cervisaphiles (aficionados of beers and ales) have grown tired of being subjected to industrially brewed swill (anyone remember the “skunky” beer commercials?) and have discovered the pleasures of carefully crafted beer flavors made under the same roof where it’s consumed. A similar evolution among consumers also transpired…

AlbuquerqueClosed in 2019Gone But Not ForgottenNew MexicoSpanishTapas

The Cellar – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno1:20 PM

While touring Granada, Spain during a 2013 episode of CNN’s Parts Unknown, Emmy award-winning celebrity host Anthony Bourdain bemoaned that “we will never have tapas culture in America.” Then, to emphasize his contention even further (and perhaps to rankle the ire of American foodies who frequent “tapas” restaurants across the fruited plain), he challenged viewers: “You may think you know what a tapa is, like if you’ve had small bites at some fusion hipster bar where they do a whole bunch of little plates. Yeah, that ain’t a tapa.” Bourdain, a best-selling author, world traveler, renowned chef and “poet of the common man” doesn’t just vociferate controversial statements because it’s good television. Agree with him or not, he knows what he’s talking about. When he says we will never have tapas culture in America, the operative word is “culture” as in the social practices associated with tapas. In Spain, tapas isn’t a formulaic approach in which a restaurant (or more likely, a drinking establishment) serves “small plates.” It’s so much more than that. In modern day Spain, tapas are not only a gastronomic custom, they are a deeply rooted social and communal event described by Travel and Leisure as “walking,…

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Olive Branch Bistro – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno7:55 PM

The depiction of a dove in flight with an olive branch in its beak is common in early Christian art and tradition. The dove symbolizes the Holy Spirit while the olive branch is seen as a symbol of peace. Christian tradition, as chronicled in Genesis 8:11, describes a dove carrying an olive branch to signal the cessation of flooding throughout the world after forty days and forty nights of rain: “And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.” Greek mythology mentions the olive branch numerous times, including during a tale of a competition between Athena, the goddess of the wisdom and Poseidon, the god of the sea. With both immortals vying to become the patron deity of Athens, the victor and recipient of the city itself would be determined by which of the immortals bestowed the city with the best gift. Poseidon stuck his massive trident into the ground to create a well of briny sea water, a fairly useless gift. The wise Athena then planted a simple yet infinitely more useful olive tree beside…