Blake's Lotaburger — Restaurant in Taos

I have been functionally unable to buy food from this restaurant for nearly a year. It's either shutting down early or closed every time I want to eat there. And I'm giving this place a buffer of hours. It's not like I'm showing up at six to get dinner, an hour before closing. I'm showing up at four or five sometimes. Every couple months I try again. Either I'm extremely unlucky, or they are closed that often. It just seems the employees are stealing time from the owner at this point. Because they'll be fully staffed and stay in the facility the entire time their closed, even after the official closing time, on their phones looking at arriving customers locked out. I feel bad for the franchisee really. I used to be a regular. It's close to my house! Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner at one point.

The only reason this is not a one star review is it's made me appreciate cooking for myself. And made me figure out I can just cook a ribeye for the same price. As the time savings of paying somebody to cook my food have been nearly zero for the past three years. I can't even get the...

So, I wrote a particularly bad review about lotaburger recently and they asked for my input. I wanted more transparency on what I found wrong as opposed to just writing them privately. First off, it's hard to tell if the burger patties are just pre-formed, frozen or fresh like they used to be. They certainly don't look fresh. The buns that used to be toasted so nicely are now sort of warmed and even though they seem fresh, they have a stale consistency to them because of it. People complain of how cold the meat is and that's because they've changed from leaf lettuce to chop lettuce which gives it this weird thermal reaction that just makes the meat turn cold. It is a far cry from what it used to be and I'm pretty sure that my comment about them losing ground in the burger wars is certainly true and I'll bet it can be seen on their bottom line for...

The two Blake's locations in Taos went through a tough year. They're trying to transform everything for the better, and the new management seems to be doing a good job. Service time has improved, food quality has improved, most things on the menu are available every day. It's a slow process, but the progress made so far makes me optimistic. A well-run Blake's is a beautiful thing, and these two locations are on their way back up the mountain.

EDIT: On my most recent visit, the clerk came out from behind the counter and locked both doors while there were still customers in the building. Major fire hazard and very illegal. She was so desperate to start closing up that she put the customers and the employees in danger. It was a full twenty minutes before the posted closing time, and food was still being prepared and orders being taken at...