For business or for pleasure, Downtown is ready for all of it. Eats and drinks. Laughs and drama on historic stages. Every kind of art and music under the sun…or the stars. Explore the crown jewel of downtown, The Kimo Theatre, which opened in 1927 and features Art Deco-Pueblo Revival details. Catch a concert at the El Rey, The Sunshine, Sister, or The Launchpad. Get your art fix at 516 or one of the other great art spaces right on Central. Stay at one of the many hotels in the center of the city. Check out the Convention Center and Civic Plaza. Eat, drink and be merry at breweries, distilleries, and bars of all stripes. A quick turn north or south connects to Barelas and the Warehouse district. From chamber music to lowriders. District courts to basketball courts, tacos to tango. Plus, the Rail Runner train and ART buses are all nearby.
Check out 505 Central Food Hall. This 13,000 square foot urban food hall is right downtown, by the Kimo, and sits among downtown’s hottest bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and galleries. Opened in the middle of the pandemic, it’s a large space with built in social distancing. You’ll find multiple vendors dishing out tasty tacos, seafood, pizza, burgers, ramen, and coffee. Explore these food vendors during the monthly ABQ Artwalk resuming downtown this summer every first Friday of the month. A great way to get out and buy local. And if all that walking makes you thirsty, there are numerous breweries and distilleries to chill at. A few blocks north of Central is Marble Brewery where on most nights you’ll find live music and food trucks. Downtown is also home to the Telephone Museum of New Mexico, a trip through time, a must-see for those who love technology and history. The New Mexico Holocaust and Intolerance Museum is a sobering experience with a lot of information about the Holocaust and exhibits on other genocides. Powerful, thought-provoking, and incredibly moving.
