Hacienda Dining Rooms

Since it was my birthday today, I wrote this yesterday (partying today), on Saturday night (the loneliest night of the week) after a diner breakfast for dinner (homefries and cornmeal mush—no eggs, to pricey for me these days) and late coffee (rare these days). This was for a post on my Substack, called Love Me Avenue—which you can follow and/or subscribe to by following this link HERE. I decided to start reposting my Water reviews there, starting with the first one I wrote, for Waterloo – Grape. Also, I’d like to reiterate—since I’m turning 65, I’d like to announce that I’m no longer taking shit from anybody—believe it or else! Now, here’s something about the Hacienda.

The Revised Edition (1955) of The Ford Treasury of Famous Recipes from Famous Eating Places (which I refer to by its later (edition), shorter name, Ford Times Cookbook) contains a surprising 22 restaurants that were not in the 1950 edition (and replaced, for whatever reason, 22 restaurants from the earlier volume). I know that because I went through the books, page by page, and entered each restaurant in a spreadsheet (so that I can use a random number generator to pick the next one to write about). After all that work, I’m barely left with energy for research, so I’ve only a bit of speculation on the lucky pick, Hacienda Dining Rooms in Old Albuquerque, New Mexico. The only address the book provides is: “Old Town Plaza,” and the Hacienda is most certainly no longer open, at least by that name.

I’m too tired (lack of sleep) to do any definitive research, so maybe an Albuquerquean can correct me if I’m wrong. I’ve only been to Albuquerque during the one-hour layover on the Western train, so never made it to this cool looking old town area. While there’s no evidence of the Hacienda Dining Rooms, there’s a (now closed) La Placita Dining Rooms (also, oddly, plural, in name) that is apparently also in the c.1706 former governor’s home, and from an online photo, there is a tree inside the building! The rather crude illustration of the Hacienda, in the book, also shows a tree inside. (I love trees inside buildings!) So, all of that is, for me, evidence enough to assume they are the same place. Another thing I read was that the La Placita is allegedly haunted, and there’s apparently many stories about ghosts at the Hacienda—some say due to an unfortunate murder suicide that went down in the vicinity. The recipe in the book is for Caldo de Frijoles, with enough chile peppers to wake the dead.

—Randy Russell 1.19.25