Getting back on track: Bosque Brewing Company plans three Albuquerque expansion projects

There is no stopping Bosque Brewing Company.

It continues to grow and spread its reach across Albuquerque and around the state. It currently has locations in the Duke City, Bernalillo, Las Cruces and Santa Fe. A new taproom will soon emerge on the same street where the brewery began in October 2012. The brewery is planning to open a new location at the former space that once housed Applebee’s on San Mateo Boulevard and Academy Road NE. Bosque’s original location once sat on San Mateo. The lease has been signed and construction has begun to transform the former chain restaurant.

“We will be redoing the whole bar,” said Jess Griego, chief operating officer at Bosque Brewing Company. “We also will be leveling the floors. Applebee’s had little ramps that you would go up and (had) the bar lower and the seating higher. We will make it all one level and then we will be redoing the draft system as well (with) 20 taps. We’ll also have our Bosque spirits and wine and all the offerings that we have at our current locations.”

Bosque will be renovating the current outdoor patio area and spruce it up with higher walls and more greenery. The taproom at 6220 San Mateo Blvd. NE will have a full food menu, cocktails and wine. It is tentatively set to open in March.

Getting back on track: Bosque Brewing Company plans three Albuquerque expansion projects

Bosque is also adding another location on the West Side. It is taking over the space that once housed the shuttered Lava Rock Brewing Company, 2220 Unser Blvd. NW. In addition to its craft beers and cocktails, made with local spirits, it will offer a full food menu.

“We’re finally moving to the West Side and back to the same kind of feeling of going in and being able to turn a restaurant space into a Bosque,” Griego said. “It was a no-brainer for us. It has a nice patio. We’re really excited to build off of what Lava Rock did out there. It’s the perfect place for live music and we’ll be taking advantage of all that outside space too and just revamping it up to make it Bosque.”

Back on the east side of the river, Bosque also will be acquiring Duke City Beaches at 10508 Menaul Blvd. NE.

“This one is going to be the most unique of the projects we have going right now,” Griego said. “We are going to be taking over the Duke City Beaches location and open that up as a drinkery. So that will not have our full menu, so it will be more like the one in Santa Fe, which is just drinks. And then we will be taking over the volleyball league, which we have never done before, and then we’re just planning on adding a few other elements to the outside for other year-round sports.”

The space will serve as a hub for volleyball enthusiasts and a gathering place for the surrounding neighborhood.

“There aren’t very many volleyball leagues around town,” Griego said. “After COVID, a lot of them didn’t start back up again. (It is) another underserved market of people who need a place to play. But we also plan to still be the neighborhood bar there as well and do both things and not just cater to just volleyball but also be somewhere in the neighborhood where people can also drop by for a drink.”

The plan to open three new Albuquerque locations within the same time span was something Bosque could not pass up.

“It’s an opportunity that we didn’t want to turn down and we did open 3½ locations in 12 months between 2022 and 2023,” Griego said. “It’s kind of what we do. Normally we’d like them to be a little bit spaced out but our business model has always been to grow and that kind of stalled big time during the pandemic. So we’re just kind of back on the track that we were originally on in 2020 as we move forward with the growth that we had planned.”