Bars and Clubs

Albuquerque’s downtown [1] is the city’s main bar and club scene, all packed in a few square blocks, which makes for handy hopping (or staggering) from place to place. Here and nearer to UNM [2], a lot of the bars cater to students, with plentiful beer and other happy-hour specials but with a somewhat generic atmosphere.

But the more distinctive places are pure Albuquerque: unpretentious, with a remarkably varied clientele. Because there aren’t enough members of any one particular subculture to pack a whole bar, even the most chic-appearing places will see an absent-minded professor and a veteran Earth First–er propping up the bar next to well-groomed professionals.