For the second year in a row, Livability.com has named Rio Rancho as one of the “top 100 places to live in America.” The City of Vision ranked 81st with a “LivScore” of 714. That measure takes into consideration eight broad categories: Economy, Housing and Cost of Living, Amenities, Transportation, Environment, Safety, Education, and Health. Santa Fe was the only other city in New Mexico to make the top 100 list, ranking 98th with a LivScore of 694. In 2023, the City of Vision earned a ranking as the 86th place to live based on the Livability’s quality of life score.
Theories abound as to what accounts for the improvement–from 86th to 81st–in Rio Rancho’s ranking. I’ve got my own theory. In February, 2014, Laguna Burger announced its expansion to Rio Rancho where it will be housed within the sprawling Latitudes complex. Latitudes, the first store of its kind in the metropolitan area, combines the elements of a neighborhood market and a convenience store with competitive gas prices. Until early in 2024, Latitudes housed Mac’s Steak In The Rough.
Laguna Burger’s Rio Rancho space is the 3,000-square-foot restaurant previously occupied by Mac’s. It’s situated on Rio Rancho Blvd. near Westside and Pat D’Arco Hwy. The restaurant seats 55 people with seating on the patio for another 50 people. This is the fifth Laguna Burger location in Central New Mexico. Other locations include one on 12th Street (across from the Pueblo Indian Cultural Center), one inside Route 66 Casino Hotel, two locations at the Route 66 Pit Stops, and one food truck with varying locations. Is it any wonder Rio Rancho’s quality of life score improved year-over-year.
Laguna Burger boasts of 100% certified Angus beef that’s “fresh, never frozen, prepared to order” burgers . Each beef patty is a whopping half-pound of seasoned ground beef. Burgers are prepared on locally baked buns with locally sourced lettuce, onions and certified Hatch green chile (often an autumn roast). While there are several burgers listed on the menu, savvy diners usually opt for the signature Laguna Burger (half-pound burger patty, Hatch green chile, lettuce, tomato, red onion, cheese, mustard, and a pickle). It’s an award-winning green chile cheeseburger, one of the best in the state.
1 May 2024: I don’t always follow my advice and (a little self-deprecation here) am not always the most savvy of diners. Then again, how do you know if there may be better options than the fabled Laguna burger if you don’t try other options? During our inaugural visit to Rio Rancho’s Laguna Burger, my choice was the Buffalo Smash (two buffalo smash patties, grilled onion, Cheddar cheese and “big bad” sauce) with green chile. Contrary to some belief, buffalo does not have a strong, gamey flavor. In fact, it tastes similar to beef but is lighter with a subtle earthiness. It’s somewhat lower in fact than beef is (not necessarily a positive; fat is flavor). Frankly, the lack of flavorful fat was noticeable. The “big bad” sauce is Thousand Island dressing without any of the qualities deserving of its name. Now, this is a good burger, but the Laguna Burger is a great burger.
1 May 2024: My Kim, maybe the only carnivorous American who doesn’t especially like burgers, had the patty melt (one-third beef patty, grilled onion, American and Cheddar cheeses, big bad sauce) sans big bad sauce. There’s not much that makes this patty melt a stand-out from other patty melts. Well, maybe for the thicker than most bread which is needed because the beef patty is thicker than most. As with the burgers, fries are available for two dollars more. Though the menu indicates these fries are fresh-cut, they had the taste and feel of fries out of a bag. Their saving grace was lots of salt.
1 March 2025: Former A&W Restaurants chairman Dale Mulder takes credit for inventing the life-altering combination of burgers and bacon in 1963. That’s nearly 40 years after the sliced and packaged bacon we all know and love today was first put on the market in 1924 by Oscar Mayer. It’s entirely conceivable that bacon was being added to burgers well before A&W did, but the restaurant chain is the first to make the claim. Today, It’s hard to imagine a world without the addition of a smoky, salty slice (or five) of bacon to your cheeseburger. Bacon has become almost as ubiquitous (in New Mexico) as green chile.
Laguna Burger’s version of the bacon cheeseburger is aptly called the Big Bad Bacon Cheddar. It’s everything the name implies. It’s big–a half-pound patty, Cheddar cheese, thick cut bacon, lettuce, tomato, red onion, Big Bad sauce–to require two hands to handle (when is the last time you could say that about Burger King’s “Whopper”). It’s “bad” in the slang connotation of the word where bad actually means good. It’s loaded with Cheddar and bacon. To amp up the flavors (as if this burger needed amping up), add green chile. Laguna Burger’s green chile actually bites back and it’s an autumn blend with red and green chiles creating a wondrous flavor profile.
1 March 2025: Conceptually, the idea of a Frito pie hot dog seems to make a lot of sense in that the flavors of two distinct and beloved New Mexico items are paired together in one entity. From a practical perspective, it doesn’t work as well. To get to the hot dog, you’ve got to consume a salad’s worth of lettuce, chopped tomatoes, red onions and Fritos. Don’t get me wrong. It’s all good, but you would want every bite to include those ingredients as well as the hot dog and the beef red chile. Once you’ve polished off the “salad” stuff, you’ll love the beef red chile and hot dog combination though it would have been nice to have some Fritos to go along with it.
