During our trip to New Mexico last year, we found an interesting place not far from our hotel that was an urban food hall that housed 6 different restaurants, two bars/breweries, and a craft coffee shop. For lunch one day, we decided to go check out 505 Central Food Hall and see what it was all about.
Mark Baker didn't start out as a food hall owner or a coffee shop owner, but as an architect with an undergraduate degree from Oklahoma. After working for a few years as a project architect, Baker moved to Los Angeles to work on his masters at UCLA. While going to school at UCLA, Baker continued to work as a project architect in the greater Los Angeles area. After graduating with his masters in architecture from UCLA in 2002, Baker moved to Albuquerque and started his own firm - Baker Architecture + Design.
Baker had a number areas of interest - he was a musician and a part-time songwriter, he played tennis and founded Tennisopolis, the world's largest social network site for tennis players. But he also loved coffee, especially craft coffee. In 2014, Baker opened Humble Coffee, a small craft coffee brewer on Lomas Ave. in Albuquerque's Nob Hill neighborhood.
But Baker also liked to travel and during his time in Europe and South America he noticed a number of food halls in place where people would congregate and have their choice of restaurants where to eat. It was something that he visualized being in downtown Albuquerque. So, in 2016 Baker bought the building at 505 Central Avenue just across the street from the historic KiMo Theatre. The building had three floors each totaling approximately 13,000 square feet in floor space. Baker planned on having a food hall on the main floor, offices on the 2nd floor, and condos on the 3rd floor.
Pictured right - Mark Baker. Photo courtesy Albuquerque Business Journal.
Baker moved his architectural company's offices into the building soon after he bought the building and began the task of designing a food hall similar to the ones he encountered in his travels. Construction began on the food hall in 2019 and things were moving along nicely until the pandemic hit in March of 2020 basically shutting down all construction and commerce in Albuquerque.
As the world slowly opened back up in the summer of 2020, construction on the food hall continued and by November the vendors were in place and 505 Central Food Hall opened to much anticipation on November 14, 2020. 9 vendors were in place including a second location of Humble Coffee and Moonwalk Bev - a brewery/distillery that was co-owned by Baker.
505 Central Food Hall is actually the third food market in the greater Albuquerque area. In early 2020, Sawmill Market opened on the city's west side near Old Town Albuquerque. A second food hall - Tin Can Alley - opened in the midst of the pandemic in May of 2020 on Albuquerque's far north side. A fourth food hall - tentatively named Highlands Central Food Market - has been in development for over 2 years along the Central Ave. corridor on the east side of downtown Albuquerque. As of now, 505 Central Food Hall is the only one in downtown Albuquerque.
We got into 505 Central Food Hall around 1:30 that particular afternoon. It's located at the corner of 5th St. and Central Ave. in downtown Albuquerque, about a three block walk from our hotel. (see map) The expansive food hall had some vendor booths in the middle and a courtyard of tables along the east wall that looks out on to 5th Street.
Toward the back opposite corner from the front door was a common area with more tables. It was a sunny and warm afternoon and there weren't a lot of people in the place so we were able to walk around and check out the vendors in the food hall.
In addition to Humble Coffee and Moonwalk Bev, 505 Central has a taco place (Tino's Tacos), a deli and sandwich shop (Stackt), a spicy chicken joint (KūKri), a ramen noodle place (Naruto Ramen), a pizza joint (Thicc Pizza Co.), and a sports bar/package liquor store (Packie's Bar).
They also had a burger joint in 505 Central - Stackers Burger Company. The man behind KūKri n the food hall - Basit Gauba - also owns the Tikka Spice food truck in Albuquerque. Gauba is a James Beard Award semi-finalist and his food truck also won a local contest for the best green chile cheeseburger in Albuquerque in 2023. Two spots opened up in the 505 Central Food Hall earlier in 2023 after the vendors didn't renew their leases, and Mark Baker convinced Gauba to open KūKri and Stackers Burger Company in those empty spots.
And it was at Stackers Burger Company where we ended up. They had a variety of burgers to choose from and we picked out a couple. We got our order numbers and went over to Moonwalk to have a drink while we waited for our burgers to cook up. Moonwalk has sort of a retro-70's vibe to it complete with a large moon on the wall near the bar. We took a seat at the bar and my wife ordered up a Moonwalk-distilled vodka and cranberry, while I got a Moonwalk India Pale Ale. I asked the bartender if it would be OK to eat at the bar and she enthusiastically said, "You bet!"
I ended up getting the Duke City Cheeseburger - the recent winner in the Green Chile Cheeseburger Smackdown contest in Albuquerque. It featured two smashed burger patties topped with cheese, green chiles, and sautéed onions. At that point during our trip to New Mexico, I was pretty burnt out on all things chile, but I had to try this burger. And it was fabulous. The green chiles had a smoky and earthy quality taste to them. The burgers were juicy and full of flavor. It was an outstanding burger.
All of Stackers Burger Company's burgers come with two patties and my wife wasn't that hungry. She asked the guy at the counter if she could get just a single burger. He suggested the classic mustard grilled cheeseburger with just one patty instead of two. That's what she ended up ordering and she also thought it was very good.
We've been to food halls before, most notably in Milwaukee and Chicago where they're three or four times larger than 505 Central Food Hall. But for downtown Albuquerque, this food hall is large enough with enough diversity to take care of people working in the area. The burgers we had at Stackers Burger Company were excellent - the award winning Duke City Cheeseburger was a great value at $11.95 - and I thought the IPA from Moonwalk Bev in the food hall was very good, as well. The food hall/market concept is one that we're starting to see more and more of where old buildings are being repurposed. And the 505 Central Food Hall was a good representation of just that.
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