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Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Discouraging News for Hungry Fliers
By Michael Hartranft
Copyright © 2010 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
Travelers at the Albuquerque International Sunport looking forward to getting their chile fix from the popular El Pinto restaurant are out of luck — at least for now.
The city of Albuquerque has decided to put out another request for proposals after the Houston company that intended to bring El Pinto, The Range Cafe and a frozen drink concession to the airport couldn't come up with the financing by last week's deadline, airport spokesman Daniel Jiron said.
El Pinto was slated to move into the former Garduno's restaurant space in the pre-security area of the airport, while The Range was to take over the area underneath the observation deck on the other side of the security checkpoint. The frozen drink concession was to be adjacent to The Range.
Jiron said JDDA Concession Management Inc. of Houston, which recruited El Pinto and the other tenants for the airport venture, was awarded the initial contract more than a year ago.
"They had been given previous deadlines, but ultimately Friday was the last deadline for them to meet the financing requirements and the contract was terminated," Jiron said.
He said the new RFP will be similar in scope and should be issued in two to three weeks.
Jiron said the city has done considerable infrastructure work inside the former Garduno's space as part of a bigger terminal renovation project.
"At this point, it is done and ready for a build-out," he said.
Jiron said that if the original contract had proceeded, El Pinto likely would have occupied the space by the end of the summer or early fall.
"Hopefully, we can maybe work with them in the future, but again, what is important to us is we have a concessionaire in there and partnering with a local firm," he said. "That's definitely what we're looking for."
Realistically, it will be spring before a restaurant of any kind is operating in that space.
A JDDA official declined to comment and referred all questions to the city.
Jim Garcia, director of operations for El Pinto, said JDDA's efforts to get financing were undermined by the bad economy.
"They originally were getting funding with some oil money that was coming out of Houston, and we all know what happened to the oil money in Houston in the last year," he said in a phone interview with the Journal on Tuesday. "They were unable to get the funding done, so we were trying to get it done locally, but they kind of ran out of time."
Garcia credited the city for doing what it could "to get all these things together."
As late as Tuesday evening, the popular restaurant's website said, "El Pinto (Albuquerque International Airport) Coming Soon!!!"
The locally owned El Pinto, on North Fourth Street in Albuquerque, has continued to expand since it opened in 1962, and now features numerous dining rooms, a large bar and a giant patio.
El Pinto also has a restaurant at George Bush International Airport in Houston.
"The world has been waiting for another El Pinto to be there (at the Sunport) because it is a New Mexico restaurant that is supposed to be featured in the RFP, but it looks like we're going to have to wait for the new RFP to rebid," Garcia said.
Jiron said The Range wasn't planning to move into the airport space until later and that work on that space "was going to come after this one."
No one at The Range could immediately be reached for comment late Tuesday.
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