Craft Republic - Albuquerque — Restaurant in Albuquerque

3rd and final update: from 1 to 5 stars! Read the previous two reviews to understand why there is a 3rd update. After my horrible experience last fall Craft Republic reached out to make things right. I returned to the restaurant tonight to give it another try based on CR's response to my original review. I did not tell my waitress Danielle why I was here or that I would be paying close attention to the service to help determine if/how I would update this review. Danielle said hello within a minute of me finding a seat and I had my beer within 4 minutes of sitting. Danielle was attentive... not to much and not to little ... just right. I ordered my appetizer and had it within 7 minutes of ordering. I was working on my laptop so I was not in a hurry but Danielle helped me get my food order in in a timely fashion. I ordered dry rubbed wings and chicken tacos. Food came out about 15 minutes later. No complaints. I would say this is typical food quality for a Sports Bar. Service was good and the food met my expectations which is why I give it 5 stars. The only thing I would suggest is that the restaurant try to make it more clear that the entire place is open seating. My first time in, I was a bit lost because I was waiting for a hostess to seat me. This time I knew it was open seating because of my last experience but I did not notice any clear signage saying "please seat yourself".

Thank you Craft Republic for making things right after my last experience. We all make mistakes. We all have bad days. It's what we do when we miss the mark that counts.

Updated from 1 star to 3 stars. Update: Craft Republic reached out to me the very next day after seeing my review. Their follow up and remedy to "make it right" is satisfactory for me to believe that they actually do care and maybe my experience is a "one off". They didn't make excuses. They owned their mistakes and made it right and asked me to come back and give them another chance which is why I've updated my review from 1 star to 3 stars. I will be back to try them out again. Hopefully my experience will be better next time.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: It's Thursday night around 7:30pm as I write this review. I've been here for 40 minutes. I'm sitting by myself in the "restaurant" side. I managed to get a beer within 5 minutes of grabbing a seat. That's why this gets one star instead of negative stars. When I finally flagged down the waitress she said "I'm sorry I'll go check on your order... nuff said... she hadn't even...

I'm writing this review to formally document a second troubling incident involving an employee named Lois at Craft Cannabis. This situation has now crossed a line—legally and ethically—and must be addressed by ownership or higher management.

Last year, Lois and her daughter in law shared personal information about our cannabis purchases with other customers and community members. This disclosure of private purchasing habits not only violated our trust but resulted in our family being judged and labeled due to her inappropriate commentary.( We came to Craft daily) (We no longer show patronage and her behavior today's why) We posted a public review at that time under JT Lee, outlining the severity of the breach.

Despite that review, nothing was done. Lois remained employed—and today, the situation escalated.

My husband, Thomas, went into Craft Cannabis to purchase products he enjoys and has supported consistently. Lois refused him service—not because of any behavior on his part, but solely because he is married to me. I wasn’t even present. Her refusal was based entirely on a personal issue she holds with me, making this blatant discrimination.

Let me be clear: refusing service based on personal bias, especially in a regulated industry like cannabis, is unacceptable—and illegal in the state of New Mexico. Under the New Mexico Human Rights Act and related consumer protection laws, businesses are not permitted to discriminate against individuals for personal, unrelated grievances—particularly when there has been no incident or legal reason for refusal.

We will be filing a formal complaint with the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department, Cannabis Control Division, and potentially escalating to the New Mexico Human Rights Bureau for discriminatory business practices.

We loved Craft Cannabis. We were loyal, daily customers. But the fact that Lois continues to violate ethical standards and customer rights—unchecked—means we can no longer support this establishment.

We hope the owner or someone in a position of authority sees this and takes immediate corrective action. Letting one employee’s bias and unprofessionalism drive away loyal customers is not only bad business—it’s actionable...

update: The company management contacted me to return and have a meal on them. We returned and it was a very different experience. The staff was much friendlier and attentive right from the start. The food was also much better (but oddly inconsistent with preparation on our first visit, not sure which was one was correct). The window garage door was not opened this time, thankfully, as it was still warm outside and people were again smoking. The manager is very nice and was sure to make our visit perfect. I really appreciated the offer to make our visit right.

..... Previous review: This was a pretty mediocre experience that ending on an even lower note. When we arrived the “hostesses” were overly occupied with their phones, and were highly annoyed they had to tell us it was open seating. After trying to sit at two tables only to discover they were filthy we found our table. The dining area was essentially empty. Our waitress arrived like 5 minutes later and she was pleasant enough but she did rub us the wrong way with a subtle attitude. We ordered two appetizers, and she ran off to get them. They did arrived quickly. The Brussels sprouts were a surprisingly small dish, but tasted okay. The pretzel bites were pretty generic and blah. We ordered our main entrees which also arrived relatively quickly. They were just okay as well- we substituted brussels for a side and that was easily twice as large as the appetizer. This is when things went downhill. Some idiot (employee) decided to open the window-garage door. Not only was it 95 outside but there was a group of people outside smoking, and guess what, that smoke came right inside. Disgusting. One couple who had just arrived, immediately left. So we had to finish our meal in the heat with cigarette smoke. Unpleasant. Aren’t there laws about smoking near buildings? Especially when it’s going INSIDE that building? We quickly got our check and left....