I recently had the privilege of celebrating the Frontier Restaurant’s 40th anniversary with owners Larry and Dorothy Rainosek, local celebrities, former and current UNM presidents, Rainosek family and friends from Texas and throughout the country, Frontier employees and Frontier regulars, like me.
The hors d’oeuvres and wine were as incredible as the people and the conversations.
Attending the event, talking with friends and seeing the restaurant’s history and time line in the Daily Lobo made me realize how much a part of my life, and the lives of other UNM students and alumni, the Frontier has become.
I have to admit that I didn’t become a Frontier fan until 1990 when it became smoke-free. Until then, only the center room, the one with the restrooms, was “smoke-free.”
This made my infrequent trips to the restaurant miserable. After that I became regular enough that everyone knows my table.
But what is it about the Frontier Restaurant that keeps people like me coming back day after day?
The food is pretty good
In my humble opinion, the breakfast burritos, tortillas and world-famous cinnamon rolls are peerless in Albuquerque.
The rest of the food is predictably good. I mean, there is most definitely better food around town, but not the wide assortment with consistently good quality you get at the Frontier. For example, their hamburgers compare favorably (or is that “flavorably”) with Whataburgers or Lotaburgers — and are on a different plain of existence from McDonald’s.
So much for trying to impersonate a food critic.
Great people
“Good morning! How are you doing today? What can I get for you?” or some in-the-moment, “I’m talking with a real person” conversation is how I’m greeted every time I step up to a register. That’s pretty wild considering the hundreds each cashier talks with daily.
It’s important to note that some of the people serving me today were serving me 26 years ago. One employee has been there 40 years. To me, this says a lot about how employees are treated.
There are few places in Albuquerque with the kind of diversity of people you get at the Frontier. Yes, Monday-Friday during school hours, UNM denizens dominate. Evenings see a combination of high school kids, UNM students studying and post UNM game-goers.
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Saturday brunch seems to be when UNM alumni pop in on their old haunt.
Sunday brunch seems to be mostly churchgoers, but churchgoers who don’t mind a smattering of body piercings, outlandish attire and colorful, sometimes spiked, hair.
I know multiple groups of friends who meet every week on the same day and time.
I think my Frontier people stories are pretty common to Frontier-goers.
For me, it’s a good place to strike conversations with folks I’ve seen around but never exchanged much more than a nod before.
Over the years, I’ve made friends with many of those people and the Frontier staff.
It’s a good place for politicking, too. The other day, I was working on a story about UNM budget cuts (still to be published), when I bumped into the House Education Committee chairman. We talked about the state budget. I lobbied him on an unrelated bill, and he asked my opinion on other bills while ladling green chile from the crock-pots.
How cool is that?
Impromptu catch-up sessions with old friends are commonplace at the Frontier.
I once met an old roommate I hadn’t seen for more than 15 years. He and his wife were traveling cross-country and had to stop in. I once bumped into someone I grew up with back in the Stone Age. Another time I met a girl who went to high school with me. I often go alone and wind up sitting with friends.
The line only looks long
I don’t know how they do it, but the lines at the Frontier are never as long as they look. Often, lines that reach around the first bend disappear in the few minutes it takes for the cashiers to open up their registers.
I have a friend who twice a day walks across the street from the George Pearl Hall, gets in line, orders a large iced tea and crosses back at the next light cycle. How’s that for timing?
In our fast food society, the Frontier gives us a chance to get our order in, pick it up and sit down to a good meal in about the time it takes at McDonald’s — with much greater quality food in an atmosphere conducive to hanging with friends, sitting solitary with our books or our thoughts, or simply watching Albuquerque, and the rest of the world, parade by our table.
Happy 40th!
