Eats Etc: Turquoise Desert Taproom

Armando and Molly Martinez already owned bakeries in Santa Fe and Rio Rancho — Dulce River Bakery is located next door to the taproom — and their goal was to bring a scratch kitchen to The City of Vision. That became a reality in July 2022. 

“I wanted to have a sports bar vibe to where people could come in and watch games, but normally when you go to a place like that, the food’s not that good,” Armando says. “Let’s just make it more like a simple, comforting kind of food. My wife makes the hamburger buns for us. We do the hoagies occasionally. The pretzel she makes from scratch, so it’s not a frozen pretzel. We were like, let’s do bar food — but great bar food.”

Make no mistake, Turquoise offers its share of staples such as wings, nachos, burgers and fish and chips — but even those are made in-house, often with an upscale feel. Take the Turquoise Burger, for example. In addition to a homemade bun, it comes topped with bacon jam — made with 100% organic maple syrup — garlic aioli, cheddar cheese and two strips of bacon.

“That’s probably our most popular burger,” Armando says.

There are other options, however, that aren’t as prevalent in sports bars.

“We also wanted to have a little twist to it,” Armando says. “We wanted to have some of the more simple stuff like fish and chips that a lot of places had, but we wanted to do a fried shrimp basket from scratch because not many people have fried shrimp. We do a chicken cordon bleu that we beer batter and deep fry, so it’s very non-traditional. We have some cauliflower rice bowls. One of them is chicken and shrimp, another one is steak.”

Turquoise features nine televisions, NFL Sunday Ticket during football season and specially-made sports-themed tables. There’s also rotating desserts from the sister business and plenty of local beers on tap, with plans to brew their own down the road.

“It’s a cool little vibe,” Armando says.

—Tristen Critchfield