UNM to debut campus taproom
Draft & Table opens Monday, offers food, wine and local beers on tap
It’s now possible to sit down to a pint of Marble IPA at the University of New Mexico — or, for that matter, a Tractor Milk Mustachio or Monks’ Dark Ale.
The state’s largest university on Monday will formally debut its new taproom, a space officials hope will serve as a social hub for the campus community and showcase for the state’s beermakers.
Draft & Table — built for $650,000 in the southeast corner of the Student Union Building — has 14 taps featuring beer from seven New Mexico breweries, and a nitro coffee from Albuquerque’s Whispering Bean Coffee Roasters.
It serves food, too, from caprese bruschetta to pulled pork tacos.
Draft & Table’s genesis dates to the fall of 2016 when then-students Gus Pedrotty and Sara Collins started a petition to get a campus taproom. The grassroots effort even included design work from students in UNM’s School of Architecture and Planning.
Regents approved the project earlier this year, and UNM paid for construction with Dining & Food
Services plant funds and capital project money from its food services contract.
UNM’s food service contractor, Chartwells, will manage the taproom. The company, which has an eight-year agreement with UNM, already oversees all eateries on the main campus. Chartwells issued a “request for information” to the local brewing community as it considered exactly how to manage the facility, which could have included an operational partnership with a single brewery.
Six breweries responded to the RFI but only one — Abbey Brewing Co., which makes Monks’ beer, — actually submitted a full proposal, said Chartwells’ resident district manager, Paul Wilson-Scott.
He said Chartwells decided to run Draft & Table with a focus on diverse options.
“The whole thought of this space was to involve a lot of brewers in town, and in talking to the brewers we talked to, that was something they thought was important,” Wilson-Scott said. “To just have one of them run it, wouldn’t be the spirit, the vision of everybody being involved.”
Draft & Table’s final design reflects the architecture students’ ideas, said Christopher Beccone, who teaches at UNM and whose firm, Studio Beccone Architecture + Design, did the project. That includes the pottery-inspired patterned steel panels that line the walls and the base of the bar.
“The vision was to give a space that had a unique flavor that would become a living room or gathering point for the whole campus community . ... I think we achieved that. I think we have something that really stands out as a memorable space,” he said.
The taproom’s staff is alcohol-certified, and UNM says they will check IDs at the point of service. Draft & Table will also sell wine and non-alcoholic beverages.