Old Town Farm structure caters to bicyclists
Barnlike building to replace popular weekend coffee truck
Albuquerque bicyclists are in for a treat. Old Town Farm is building a permanent structure to replace its Bike-in Coffee truck, located just off a bike trail near Interstate 40 and Gabaldon Road NW.
The truck, on Montoya just north of Mountain Road, caters to weekend bicyclists who leave the trail for a quick cup of joe and a small bite to eat. It is open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
On a good weekend, Bike-In Coffee sees over 200 cyclists each day.
“It’s really taken off,” said Linda Thorne, coowner of Old Town Farm, which owns the coffee stop. “We had so many customers, we just couldn’t handle it.”
The building, which is roughly 2,500 square feet, has an elevated wraparound porch and is designed to look like a barn. Construction began in April, and a completion date is uncertain, Thorne said.
She said she and her husband, Lanny Tonning, are trying to make the new building as environmentally friendly as possible. Much of the wood for porch railings and other fixtures was repurposed from the red barn that dominates the farm’s entrance.
“After 40 years, you accumulate a lot of stuff at a place like this,” Thorne said.
She and Tonning are also looking into state-ofthe-art solar paneling for the roof, solar batteries for electricity and barrels for reclaiming rain water to irrigate the vegetables.
According to Thorne, Old Town Farm began as a horse farm, and horses still roam the grounds. For the last 10 years, it has specialized in growing flowers and vegetables and hosting special events.
“It’s not so much that this (the new building) will serve more people, but it will give better service (to existing customers),” Thorne said. She said the menu will be simple, with much of the food grown on site.
Thorne and Tonning plan to serve specialty food items like mini-quiche, giant cookies, salads and a daily soup. It will also provide coffee and a variety of non-coffee drinks such as smoothies and cucumber mint coolers.
Fans of the coffee truck, don’t worry. It is being repurposed and won’t be put out to pasture just yet. Instead, it will be used to sell dessert items.