Frontier Restaurant in Albuquerque marks 50 years

The iconic Frontier Restaurant in Albuquerque marked its 50th year in business earlier this week.

The Albuquerque Journal posted a story about the eatery at 2400 Central Ave. (aka Route 66):

“It’s sort of like a melting pot where people come and meet,” said Dorothy Rainosek, Frontier co-founder and owner. […]
Rainosek said when she and her husband, Larry, opened Frontier on Feb. 10, 1971 it was a comparatively small 99-seat single room restaurant with a menu limited to diner breakfasts, hamburgers and the famous sweet roll. The green chile and tortillas came later.
“Our employee taught us about green chile, because coming from Texas, everything was Tex-Mex,” she said. “We had no idea about chile or red chile.” […]
Rainosek said it’s not uncommon for customers to buy the chile by the half gallon to take home and freeze.

The restaurant now seats more than 300 people.

KRQE-TV reported:

The couple said they were excited to reach this milestone, especially in the midst of COVID-19. “It’s been pretty quiet. We hadn’t quite recovered from the ART thing where people don’t use Central as much when things started closing down, but we’ve persevered and we’re going to do it again,” Dorothy said. 
How the couple ended up in New Mexico was that of chance, Larry said, as he had mistakenly thought the University of New Mexico had a similar campus size and location to a business district like the University of Texas at Austin. Even though the location wasn’t what they expected initially, it ended up working out as they said they now get much of their traffic from the University of New Mexico campus.

Here’s another report from KOB-TV in Albuquerque:

Roadfood.com, which should be required reading for all Route 66ers and two-lane highway enthusiasts, said this about the Frontier:

The famous Frontier sweet roll is hot and gooey with a cinnamon sugar glaze; the breakfast burrito is a lovely tan flour tortilla wrapped around scrambled eggs, melted cheese, hash browns and hot green chilies.
Lunch and supper also are great examples of quick-eats, New Mexico-style. There is fine green chili stew by the bowlful, there are big broad enchiladas that can be had with beef or vegetarian-style with meatless green chili, cheese, and onions; there are chalupas and tacos and some excellent blue-plate hamburgers. We like the Frontier burger special, a big goopy sandwich made with hickory-flavored sauce, cheese, and 1000 Islands dressing, served with French fries on the side.

Roadfood rates it five stars: “memorable … one of the best.”

(Image of the Frontier Restaurant in Albuquerque by NM Mashurov via Flickr)