Category: Socorro

Yo Mama’s Grill – Socorro, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAmerican, Burgers, New Mexico, Socorro

Such was my bumpkinly naivete that my virgin ears weren’t subjected to a “yo mama” joke until shortly after my 19th birthday. The site was the Non-Commissioned Officer’s club at Royal Air Force (RAF) Upper Heyford in England. The event was an irreverent ninety-minute show featuring brazen comedian Redd Foxx whose explicit brand of humor both shocked and thrilled the American-culture-starved audience. Foxx’s repertoire included lampooning nearly every ethnic group in the audience, invective-laden raunchiness that would make a stripper…

Bodega Burger Co. & Lounge – Socorro, New Mexico

Gil GardunoBurgers, New Mexico, Socorro

“A Hamburger is warm and fragrant and juicy. A hamburger is soft and non-threatening. It personifies the Great Mother herself, who has nourished us from the beginning. A hamburger is an icon of layered circles, the circle being at once the most spiritual and the most sensual of shapes. A hamburger is companionable and faintly erotic: the nipple of the Goddess, the bountiful belly-ball of Eve.” ~Tom Robbins Hamburgers have long been the apotheosis of comfort food deliciousness and the…

Socorro Springs Brewing Company – Socorro, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAmerican, Bar & Grill, Pizza, Socorro

Socorro, New Mexico is a dichotomous town.  It is the second oldest inhabited community in our culturally blessed Land of Enchantment, yet it boasts one of the nation’s premier research universities.   It is steeped in history and tradition, inextricably linked to its storied past while embracing the technologies which are laying the groundwork for future peace and prosperity. Socorro, it seems, is also a “jumping off” point to other destinations.  It is within minutes of the Bosque del Apache…

El Camino Family Restaurant – Socorro, New Mexico

Gil GardunoAmerican, New Mexico, New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2011, Socorro

America’s oldest and longest continuously used “highway,” El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, (Spanish for the Royal Road of the Interior Land) includes a 404 mile stretch that bisects much of the Land of Enchantment  from south to north.  A large portion of that stretch is barren and desolate, one especially treacherous and dry section even designated by the Spanish conquistadores as the Jornada del Muerto, Spanish for “route of the dead man.”  For nearly 400 years–from 1598  (more than…