A Little Too Late... We miss an opportunity to taste a local tradition

While driving to Colorado to do race management for the Fiesta Regatta at Chatfield, Carol Anne and I decided to stop in Las Vegas, NM, for a bite of lunch. Carol Anne particularly wanted to try something local and non-national-chain-cookie-cutter, and was excited to find good reviews on-line for a little hole-in-the-wall sort of local institution of a small New Mexican restaurant in the historic part of Las Vegas. Reviewers, including some from this spring, were enthusiastic about a completely unpretentious but reliable eatery called Estella's. We arrived, parked, and got to the restaurant well before their scheduled closing time of 3:00 p.m. But we were still too late.



Perhaps a couple of weeks or several weeks too late. The restaurant was closed up, with auction notices posted on the windows. Sigh. After 63 years in business, we'd missed the opportunity to eat there by perhaps a month or less. Now, that's a pity. Probably local folks can fill us in on just what happened.

We wound up trying another local place across the street, but found it closed to the public because they were having a private funeral banquet... and yes, they had posted the name of the dearly deceased guest of honor.

So we then went to an Italian pasta and pizza place, still in part of the historic district... and did have a good meal. But, it didn't have chile verde. Oh well.