Tavern wears well-worn ambience well

Founded in the 1940s, the Mine Shaft has welcomed miners, hippies, bikers, artists, seekers of various persuasions, and anyone with a yen for a drink and burger.

Now, the place has its own TV show. Well, sort of. It serves as a stand-in for The Red Pony, the fictitious bar in Wyoming author Craig Johnson’s wonderful “Longmire” novels. You can see the Mine Shaft, along with the Las Vegas (N.M.) Plaza and the Valles Caldera, in the A&E Sunday night “Longmire” series. Who knew, except for the TV folks, that northern New Mexico could pass for Wyoming? You will be happy to know that fame hasn’t gone to the Mine Shaft’s head. The place is as laid back as ever.

	Mine Shaft Tavern LOCATION: 2846 N.M. 14, Madrid, 505-473-0743 HOURS: Food service 11:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays and until 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays FULL BAR

The Mine Shaft is an institution in a good sense. A guy or a gal can order a cold beer or a margarita here and enjoy the view from the back porch and the live music on weekends without getting fancied up or taking out a bank loan. In fact, looking like you’ve just come from an office job would have “tourist” written all over it. (Tourists are welcome; some have been known to bring dogs.)

The Shaft has the hard-won ambience bestowed by time and benign neglect. The establishment consists of one big room bordered by a long stretch of a bar with stools. A bunch of wooden tables, a stage for a band with restrooms on either side, a door to the porch, and pool table in the front room make up the rest of the décor. In addition to the taxidermied buffalo head, the walls are papered with hundreds of $1 bills – painted, autographed, turned into artwork and otherwise defaced as U.S. currency. Above the bar is a multipaneled painted mural with chapters in Madrid history including wagon train traffic, coal mining and the railroad.

Although the band had finished when my friends and I arrived, we loved the radio’s background music: the best of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jefferson Airplane, Van Morrison and the like. You don’t have to strain your imagination to picture the Mine Shaft in the 1960s – just give the patrons longer hair and love beads.

As a Santa Fe person, another thing I like about the Mine Shaft is the beautiful drive to get here. Travel along N.M. 14 onto the plains south of Santa Fe, past the prison, movie studio, and sheriff’s headquarters on to the San Marcos Cafe and past the junctions for Galisteo and Cerrillos with the Jemez Mountains and the backside of the Sandias helping to create the view. I hadn’t been out here for too long; this is a landscape that nurtures the soul.

Speaking of nurturing, the Mine Shaft has food. We tried two of the specials, the shrimp quesadilla ($12.95) and the baby-back ribs ($20.95 for a full rack). The quesadilla was fresh, hot and good. I appreciated that it came with fresh avocado slices and that the kitchen used large shrimp rather than tiny ones.

The ribs arrived cool and we asked the waiter to warm them. He apologized, noting that they were having some trouble with the oven. When they came back, they were good. The tender, juicy meat had a tasty sauce. I thought the price was a bit high, especially considering that the potato salad and beans that came with the ribs were unexceptional.

We tried two of the burgers. The New Mexico Burger ($11.95), your basic green chile cheeseburger, and the Kobe Burger ($11.95), with an extra two bucks for cheddar and chile. The NM burger was OK, but the tasty Kobe beef was worth the extra price. The burgers come with choice of fries (good) or cole slaw (OK, a bit too sweet for me). A better bun would make a better burger, but I doubt that most folks complain.

We started with guacamole, fresh and gently seasoned but pricey at $7.75 for about half a cup. We finished with two good desserts. My favorite was the brownie sundae. The base was a large, warm, cookielike brownie that tasted homemade. It was topped with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream and finished with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. What’s not to like here? The berry white chocolate cheesecake, provided by the Cheesecake Factory, came in a chocolate crust. Very nice! ($6 each)