New name and new look for San Felipe Casino
Change part of $12M remodeling, rebranding
It’s not the only Black Mesa in New Mexico — but it’s the only one with a casino attached. San Felipe Pueblo on Monday officially changed the name of its casino — about 30 miles south of Santa Fe — from San Felipe Casino to Black Mesa Casino, General Manager Steve Penhall said.
As part of a $12 million remodeling and rebranding effort by the pueblo, the nearby San Felipe Travel Center — which includes a restaurant, convenience store, cigarette shop and gas pumps — also has been renamed Black Mesa Travel Center, Penhall said.
The casino applied for a Black Mesa Casino trademark in December 2016.
Penhall said many tribal members wanted to give the casino a name more relevant to the pueblo. There’s a Black Mesa on pueblo land that’s “very culturally significant” to the tribe, he added.
“They’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” Penhall said. “I’ve been told that this is about 17 years in the making.”
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are 13 summits in New Mexico called “Black Mesa.”
The most famous is Black Mesa on San Ildefonso Pueblo. This is the spot in which warriors from various pueblos encamped, holding Don Diego de Vargas’ army for months in 1694 during the reconquest.
That mesa is the namesake of the Black Mesa Golf Club near Española on Santa Clara Pueblo land.
There’s also a popular concession at Albuquerque International Sunport called Black Mesa Coffee.
Penhall said the remodeling project will involve adding a laundry and a grocery store to the travel center as well as demolishing the pueblo’s car racing track, which has not been used in years.
“They’re going to tear it down, salvage it and haul it away,” he said. The land there, Penhall said, will be “reclaimed” and the arroyo “restructured.”
The pueblo plans to revamp the traffic infrastructure around the casino and travel center to make it safer, Penhall said.
Eventually, the casino will be remodeled to include a new restaurant and a smoke-free slot machine area, he said.