One of the best dive bars in the world. Â I always stop here when I am in Cruces, and it is timeless. Â One of the oldest bars around - drinks are stiff, cheap, and the music is always pretty good.
Bring cash though, they don't take cards (although the ATM inside only charges $1.50, which is a helluva deal).
The El Patio is the most relaxing bar in the Las Cruces area. Â I shoot pool there with my friend now and then. Â The drinks are strong and cheap and if you are not careful you get a dose of attitude with it from the bartender but what the hell..... some of the jokes on the walls in the men's room make up for it. Â Check out the chewing gum comment on the condom machine, classic.......
Review Source:You have got to be kidding! Upon researching where to go in Las Cruces this place came up. I passed it once or twice while checking out Mesilla and figured it was not my taste, but I was curious since it was on that "must see" list. After having a drink or two with dinner at Double Eagle one night (more my usual taste) I wandered over to El Patio. People this is not just a dive bar, it's one of those places you just don't go, especially if you are a female and especially not at night. This is your warning, this is not a place to wander into by yourself (I'm pretty sure I'm lucky to be alive). I figure it's the kind of place you go when you have been out with friends and want one last drink with your friends before you go home, but even then there are safer choices. Â It's smelly and dirty (I saw roaches). It attracts a very seedy crowd, even on the slow night I was there. Be glad I was idiot enough to go in there to write this review and save some out- of-towner the risk of getting hurt. I am pretty sure you can find cheap drinks someplace else. .. Sum it up with one word...SCARY.
Review Source:Small, dark, dingy, cheap beer and crumbling adobe. All things a good bar should be. I read the reviews about the service, which is probably what you get on a Friday night unless you have a DD bra or are a regular. That's expected from college student bartenders. It's a small old school neighborhood bar with great history. If you want to relax and experience it, get there early or go on a slow night. If you're sitting at the bar and tipping well, you'll be taken care of!
Review Source:I can't believe that this place charges a cover. Â I mean, yeah, it's really cool to hang out in a REALLY old, kinda grimy dive bar with awesome drink prices, but a cover?? Â Really? Â Yeah, the prices are great, but whatever you do, don't wear flip-flops because they'll more than likely get stuck to the floor at some point and the evening won't end so pretty.
Review Source:IF YOU ARE NOT FROM SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO, this place will be hard for you to wrap your head around. Â If you want CHEAP drinks and a true dive bar atmosphere in Old Mesilla, come here! Â Old, run down, and true hang out when all you want to do is drink and watch time pass you by. Â Â They have great bands from it to time as well.
Review Source:Well whenever you come here its either hit or miss!!! This used to be the place to go to a few years back but i think it is finally going dead. Â This is most likely due to the new places opening up serving alcoholic and entertainment. Â There are a few things guaranteed here: Â Dirty bathrooms, dirty floor, getto people, slow bartenders, average music. Â And i don't really understand why they have a cover charge!? RIDICULOUS
The only reason this place gets 2 stars is because the drinks are cheap
Okay, I'm adding more because I went back to El Patio last Friday. WOW! What can I say. Perhaps some of the worst service I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing in all of my travels around this great country and the world in a bar/restaurant/service venue. The bar was busy, I'll give it that. I expected to wait probably 7-10 minutes for a drink. That's a long time, but reasonable when it's a busy, smallish bar. 3 tenders on staff cut down that time theoretically, right? Wrong. I waited in one line for 20 minutes and felt like I was being neglected, so I moved to another line and waited for 20 minutes. After that, I got some girls to stand in line (maybe it's because I'm a guy?), and THEY waited for about 15 minutes before a bartender asked them what they wanted. Then he got the order wrong. I wouldn't have necessarily minded all of this had the bartenders actually been serving democratically, but they were serving obvious friends and cute, flirty girls first. At one point, a girl walked up to the bar and got served after about a minute and a half. By that time, I had been waiting for about 45 minutes with cash in hand and an obvious grimace. I heard 5 people at the bar say they were never going back and I tend to agree with them. Unless somebody in management can crack down on these rank bar tending amateurs, they're going to lose valuable business. I should say that the blond waitress whom I've seen there often is attentive and prompt, if a little haughty (but I'm there to get a drink, not to discuss the latest issue of whatever magazine someone likes). These yahoos pretending to be bartenders are a joke. I've seen this before, too. The tenders think that serving only the regs and the people sitting at the bar is what's going to bring them tips. They just don't realize that I would've become a regular there and tipped like a man about to die. Too bad. For all of the cool dive-bar vibe and the bands that play there, it gets ruined by a couple of lazy, I'm-too-good-for-this-job, self-important pricks on the wrong side of the bar pouring lix for a select few. The barprentenders. Well, next time I go, I'm bringing my flask and prefunking to make sure I never have the vomit-inducing displeasure of service at the bar.
Review Source:Its hard to imagine that places like El Patio still exist, with its ancient facade appearing to be crumbling in on itself, but with the sustained confidence in architects and carpenters of years long passed. Â
The bar is archaic with a long and L-shaped counter, plenty of historical memorabilia adorning its walls, dim-yellow lighting, and a jovial staff slinging beers and conversation; a mood that spills onto its lively patrons. Â The beer in this establishment is criminally cheap, so much so that I wonder if it truly is stuck in the William Bonney era. Â I hope that I sat on his barstool.
I hope that this bar never, ever goes away. Â Places like this need to exist.