Red Mountain Cafe

What a cool little place to stop and support a local business! We were returning from an exhausting weekend at the Leadville Trail 100 mile race (crewing and pacing), and had been running on only a handful of hours of sleep in 48 hours. We had passed this place a couple of times on previous trips from our home in Albuquerque to CO. I was craving pizza.

We parked across the street at a "brewery" (that we had stopped at on another trip, but despite the posted hours saying they were open, we found locked doors and not a soul on the property). We had our dogs with us and wanted them to hang in the shade while we ate. More on this later...

The little house is charming, and there are no frills. But the pizza toppings list sounded delicious, and so did their sandwiches. I liked that there were slice specials, but we wanted a whole pie. There were two women ordering smoothies or coffee drinks ahead of us, so we plopped down on a well worn sofa to wait. It didn't bother us at all that the furniture was used and didn't match and had some stains on it...it was like a friend's living room!

The owner chatted with the women, and it was clear that he knew almost everyone who came in to order. He took our order, told us that it would be about 25-30 minutes, and told us that he had seating on his patio, along with strawberry plants that just might have some berries that were ready to be picked and eaten. Help yourselves he said! Too awesome!! The seating was plastic patio chairs under a cool awning, next to a huge mud oven. The yard was planted with herbs (the basil looked amazing) and berries and squash. We chilled and talked out our fun weekend while waiting for our food. The owner came out at one point to turn on his soaker hose for his herbs, and talked to us about our trip. We found a few strawberries to munch on, and felt right at home.

The pizza was hot and pretty standard. We got mushrooms, roasted garlic, onions, artichokes, and feta. It hit the spot, but I can't say that it was pizza to die for. It was simple, fresh, and hot. It was the relaxed atmosphere of this place that will bring us back.

Back to the parking situation...

While eating, we saw that a vehicle pulled up next to ours across the street and honked. I was nervous, because we had actually parked in the other business' area, but did so for the dogs and shade. We thought anyone would understand, right? Uh, no. They came straight over to Red Mountain Cafe and started asking whose vehicle it was. The cafe owner poked his head out and asked if it was ours, and we said yes, and we were getting ready to leave. He apologized as we hurried out and called his neighbors "parking nazis", as though he's had to deal with that before. As we crossed the little highway to our truck, we told the other business owners that we were sorry, and that we did it because of our dogs needing shade. The man grumpily said "ok", but the woman just glares at us.

Anyways...here's the skinny: eat at this place. Support this lovely little local business. Eat on the patio. Talk to the owner. Enjoy the slow pace.

And whatever you do, don't park in front of the business across the street. I'm not saying it's the Taos Trail Inn. But I am.

This place is a great alternative when staying at Ojo Caliente (with super overpriced food!).  Hop on up the block for a solid 15.00 pizza with jazz music and a socially awkward owner.  We tried the mushroom and loved it. They're open until 8pm on most nights but they only offer outdoor seating (which is VERY limited).

If you're looking for a very basic sandwich/bakery/pizza joint, this the place.

Red Mountain Cafe (and their homemade bread)  was highly recommended by the staff at Ojo Caliente Spa, but it didn't quite meet our expectations.  We'll chalk it up to the owner/manager having (what looked like) a bad day...  The soup wasn't ready to be served, the 4pm pizza wasn't ready either, and after ordering two basic sandwiches, he ran out of bread.  But, he did apologize and offered us a couple of banana muffins to compensate.

In reviewing our experience, it was actually below A-OK (as both the bread and muffins were pretty dry), but several other customers popped-in and assured us it was normally better organized.  

We'll leave it up to you to decide.