Turquoise Desert Taproom — Restaurant in Rio Rancho

In town for a long weekend visiting friends and we decided to try this tap room for dinner. Who am I to say "no" to a tap room?

It was Friday evening and there was, surprisingly, no wait to be seated. It was pretty packed and there was a game of some kind being shown on the televisions (I can't tell you who was playing. Jim doesn't do sports).

Our server met us pretty quickly and brought us water and took drink orders. I was definitely down for a flight and offered to set me up with a flight of her favorites, minus one because I specified I wanted at least one IPA. We were good with that.

The flight (photos provided) was colourful and looked promising. Congo also approved. After we got our drinks apparently the place got slammed because the nice lady who was our server (whose name we didn't get) disappeared behind the bar to take care of drink orders.

After about 10 minutes of waiting to place our food orders we decided to just flag down any person walking by. We didn't get his name, but he was able to get our food orders placed. My wife ordered a pretzel as an appetizer, I ordered the Nachos. I was surprised when he asked what kind of cheese I wanted, queso or shredded. I'm a queso-over-nachos kinda guy, but it's nice to have the option.

Of the flight, 3 out of 4 were amazeballz. When she asked if I wanted to try the Winter Warmer I said "ok, I'll try something new". It was Santa Fe Brewing's Adobe Igloo. To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect. When I tasted it I....umm...didn't know what to make of it. It was malty, but had other tastes I couldn't pinpoint. Our friends tried it as well and it was met by a "huh" from all of us. The rest of the beers in the flight were good with a huge shout-out to the Turquoise Trail Cream Ale (which was recommended by our server). That one definitely gets Best In Show.

The pretzel that wifey ordered was not your average ordinary hot pretzel. It was large and airy, not dark brown and dense. It tasted great, but it wasn't what you're used to. The beer cheese queso complimented it very nicely.

My Congo Approved Nachos with beef were most excellent. The plate was heaping, and came with fresh serrano peppers. High-Five for the fresh serranos!

The staff was constantly in motion keeping tables clean, drinks flowing, and food delivered. I wouldn't mind visiting again on a future trip to...

We attended the Mother’s Day Brunch which was $30/person, buffet style. We waited quite a bit for our drinks to come, though recognizing it was a holiday and busy that wasn’t a big issue. We saw the waitress one other time, which was to pay the bill. The largest concern was that as we headed to the buffet line, they had run out of plates and silverware, so we were given paper plates while they worked to wash the silverware for us. The buffet had very little food left, and we could tell the staff was frazzled and working to get things out. What was concerning was how much food, especially meats were uncooked and warming burners that were no longer on. The salmon looked like tuna, it was flaky on the outside and raw in the middle. A whole pan of severely undercooked bacon, which as the staff saw me picking at the few pieces that looked cooked said “yeah, I think we need to put this back in the oven” and then asked if i wanted to take the piece from my plate and put it back in the pan to cook. Food safety…once the food has touched someone’s plate, it should NOT get mixed in with other food that will be served to other guests, regardless of if it will be cooked again! At this point, I decided that it was not safe to eat here. Many of our other family members tried to eat around some stuff, but one ended up puking before we left and 3 others were sick last night/today.

To be clear, we paid $30/person, full price. While we should have complained to management, the health officials and demanded a refund, we decided to just pay and leave since most of us work in service industries in some way or another. I had hoped this was just a busy day with a culmination of other factors that contributed to our experience, though other recent reviews are showing a trend. Hopefully they can overhaul to improve both the service and...

Great neighborhood spot for watching sports or just hanging out with friends. We went on a Thursday evening and the place was hopping but we found a table quickly. Service was fast and attentive, drinks were refilled without having to flag the server down (a rarity these days). The appetizers came quickly. We tried two beer battered appetizers, fried cheese (pepper jack and cheddar)and spicy pickles. Both were very good with the cheese being the much much better of the two. The beer batter is excellent! The good, my wife had the keto friendly (sans tortillas) fajitas, they came with a tasty side of cilantro cauliflower rice, very good. I had the green chile cheese burger, cooked medium (to perfection) on a house made bun. The beef was of good quality however the green chile didn’t have any heat. The burger came with hand cut fries (think 5 Guy's) which were ok but not my favorite. I also opted for the onion rings (beer battered) which were better than the fries. Now the bad, thinking that anything "beer battered" had to be good, our other dining companion chose the Fish and Chips. When it comes fish and chips to we have a very high standard, with Two Fools tavern in Albuquerque being the gold standard. Well unfortunately these didn’t measure up. After the first bite our dining companion proclaimed "it tastes like fish sticks". He was not exaggerating. It had a VERY fishy taste. I guess I have never had Rock Fish. Most places seem to have a much milder type of fish that I am used to. It was served with a generic tartar sauce. He was not even able to finish the plate. So all in all a good experience, good service and mostly good food. It's nice to have a good neighborhood gathering place. I wish them...