Range Café Bernalillo — Restaurant in Bernalillo

Worst service ever. This was my first visit to this Range Cafe. I have heard great things about the food. We ordered online to have a timed pick. I showed up a few minutes after the time I was supposed to pick it up. The restaurant was busy and that is understandable. I went to the first station and waited about 3 minutes till someone came up to me and I found that this station was only for seating and I was told to go to the register. With a vague area pointed to. After finding the cash register, I waited about 1 minute and someone walked by and said she would be with me shortly. 2 minutes later someone I am guessing is the manager walks up and gets her card and keys from someone and a server shows up at the same time. The server asks the manager to cash out her customer, I was ignored and the customer that was paying was helped. While I continued to wait they had a conversation about why the customer was in town and that they were staying at the casino and that they were here for a baseball game. They talked about how long they would be staying in town and what else they might do while they were here. This took about 3-4 more minutes. I then ended back up at the register and explained that I had a online Togo order, she asked my name swiped her card then said she would check on it. walked over to a table and told me she would check in the kitchen. I moved over so that I wasn't in any ones way and she proceeded to start ringing up the people that were behind me instead of going to check on my food that should have been ready about 15 minutes earlier at this point. She checked out 3 more people. In the process of her checking out the last person I found my food on a different table that she had not even looked at. I have spent most of my life in food service and I am all about good service. I tip well for everything. If she had found my food right away as she should have I would have tipped her at least a few dollars just because she took good care of me. The food was not bad, but being colder then it should have been and the bad service really made this an undesirable visit. We have eaten at Then Range Café before and it was a good experience. I would not recommend this...

The Range Cafe in downtown Bernalillo has long been a local favorite on account of a menu featuring hearty diner favorites like country fried steak and gravy, and zesty New Mexican classics like Chile Rellenos and Huevos Rancheros. Most of all, though, it's the genial, welcoming staff: no matter how busy they get, you'll never feel rushed; stopping in at The Range always feels a little like coming home.

This visit, my wife and I started out with Rey's Nachos, a giant, confetti-colored mesa constructed of black beans, tender shredded chicken, crumbled white cheddar cheese and Mexican cojita, with chile con queso, freshly chopped guacamole and pico de gallo, fresh lettuce, chopped tomato, and blue & white corn chips, the whole thing laced with a lightly seasoned smoked chile crema. The best nachos in the universe.

For supper she ordered the Country Fried Steak, a Route 66 classic consisting of a succulent breaded fried cutlet smothered in savory cream gravy, served with homemade mashed potatoes (with soft, buttery chunks of potato, which is how you know it's homemade), accompanied by a delicious side dish of yellow squash sautéed with fresh corn and onions. Her only complaint was that there was too much food.

I had The Range's signature Plato Combinación del Rancho, which consisted of a blue corn chile relleno, two rolled lean beef blue corn enchiladas, one chicken taco dressed with smoked chile crema; savory pinto beans, twin moats of red and green chile ("Christmas"), the whole thing topped with melted white cheddar, and accompanied by a mouth-watering mound of arroz verde ("green rice"), an aromatic side dish consisting of basmati rice cooked with parsley, cilantro, spinach flakes, olive oil, garlic and scallions. I'll never eat plain rice again.

My only complaint is that I couldn't possibly eat all that food. But that's a good problem to have. Two sets of...

Fantastic place! It’s huge, you don’t expect that from the outside. We ate in the room with the (beautifully appointed) bar. Great New Mexican accents and local art available to purchase displayed on the walls.

I got the Urban Farmer Salad, which is comprised of spinach, house-roasted beets, candied pecans, fried feta, apples, & lemon-basil vinaigrette. One of the best salads I’ve ever had in my life. The spinach was fresh, they provide an extremely generous portion of candied pecans, and that fried feta was just chef’s kiss. I initially ordered the Lemon Basil Gin & Tonic for my drink, but they were out of that one so I got the Mixed Berry Lemonada instead and it was fantastic, with real strawberry slices around the inside of the glass.

My mom got the Combo Plate, which included one blue corn chile relleno, two rolled beef blue corn enchiladas, one chicken taco, arroz verde (cilantro rice), pinto beans, and she got “Christmas” (red & green sauce both) on the side for her sauce choice. Her favorite was the relleno and she didn’t even think she liked those. She didn’t love the taco as much as everything else. My mom got the Prickly Pear Margarita and she enjoyed that, it was strong enough to get her tipsy, so I drove us back to our tent in the Jemez area after 😂

We also shared the creme brûlée and it was tasty, although the brûlée’d sugar on top was a little too thick.

Our waitress was lovely and had a great sense of humor. I wish I’d have asked her name again to give her credit because I couldn’t really hear what she said when she initially introduced herself. My mom didn’t finish her plate (was just a lot of food) and she even asked if everything was ok. A lot of waitresses don’t even care to ask for fear of a customer complaining so I really...