Q Bar

Salsa night is awesome, the décor and design of this place, also awesome. The margaritas are WEAK WEAK WEAK!!! I drank, 6 in 2 hours and never caught a buzz. I had to ask the bar tender to make it strong because I wasn’t a fan of margarita flavored sugar water, but don’t want to drink JD, or crappy shots. I seriously wanted to catch a buzz and dance. We both left sober, my suggestion? Get a room and bring your own booze.

THE WORST SERVICE. We paid $ 100 for a reserved table and bottle service for a bachelorette party and it literally got us nothing. The first waitress, Monique, was so rude and let the bride pay for drinks and the second waitress, Britney, was so slow! It took her 30 minutes to get a bottle of champagne to the table. Overall, the bat was expensive and the service was terrible. We won’t be going back ever.

I went on a Thursday for salsa night and had a blast. There was no cover, free salsa lessons from 8:30 to 9:30 (donation optional), and I ended up being too busy dancing to even get a drink! The party really got started around 10:30, so if you already know how to salsa, I’d show up then. Great crowd, nice atmosphere, and fun music.

Finally made it out here for Latin night with my wife and I left afterwards with mixed feelings about the bar, the Latin night, the crowd, and the DJ.
The beer selection here is weak, like Dos Equis weak, so I wasn’t drinking a beer. Problem is, I’m not the hard-​partying, shot-​taking, Jack and coke guy I used to be, so the sad liquor display at Q Bar did nothing for me. I chose not to drink if that’s at all believable.
The space is cool here, if perhaps devoting far too much space to underused lounging, and not enough to its dance floor. We got there around nine and the place was about a third full, but it got fairly packed pretty quickly.
As for the crowd, pretty interesting. First off, it’s kind of weird in a place like New Mexico that there’s even such thing as a Latin night. This is a Latino-​majority state, que no? Every night should be Latino night. But whereas every where else I go to dance salsa, merengue and other Latin music, the crowd is all Latinos because we’re in a Latin neighborhood or country and this is just the people coming out to enjoy our music, here in Albuquerque it’s more like a hobby or an adventure. For some strange reason, Latin night in Albuquerque almost feels counter-​culture. Weird.
So needless to say the crowd here was quite bizarre. There were clearly some Spanish-​speakers here looking for the music of their homeland, but there were also a good deal of folks that appeared to not speak a word of Spanish. Of this set, many were 50+ in age and maybe even older. Quite the contrast from hitting the local club in Washington Heights. Add to this that there were some serious salseros at Q Bar when we were there, at least salseros in that they could dance their asses off, and the entire vibe kind of reminded me of Copacabana NYC (the now defunct epicenter of salsa dancers looking to only dance with other seasoned salsa dancers) meets Club Med.
I guess my point is when I go out to dance, I’m looking to have a good time, not compete in a dance off with a geriatric gringo that thinks he’s a backup dancer in a Marc Anthony video, which is what you can expect at Latin night at Q Bar.
Finally, let’s talk about the DJ. Ay el pobre. What is it about DJs in New Mexico? What law dictates that they must be a decade behind the times, inept in their mixing and song choices, and reluctant to play HITS? I thought the internet cured all this shet! I don’t wanna hear the wack reggaeton song from 2007 that got a month of play back then. I don’t wanna hear cha cha cha when I’m out for a night on the town. This is not pre-​Castro Cuba, homie!
My advice for the DJ: listen to La Mega NYC for a month straight. Copy EVERYTHING they do and track down every effing song they play. Carry on.

What happened went their tonight to find it was closed. Enjoyed Tuesday nights singles group. Band wasn’t even notified. What happened. Is it being renovated?

This place has the worst management ever. I’m military and traveller to Albuquerque for MLK weekend. I bought a table and spent lot of money of drinks. They wouldn’t let a friend come in bc they manager didn’t like what he was wearing. He had an attitude. Very unfriendly. Given a choice I wouldn’t go back there. The crowd was trashy and manager was a piece of s**t. Definitely racially profiled. Avoid this place of you can. Take your business elsewhere.

First timer. Nice and quiet. Went for a private party. The drinks were good. My husband order the chicken quesadilla it was ok. Our bill was fairly cheap wasnt sure if it was because of private event. Service great I ferl the server handled everything well being the only one.

Drinks here are expensive! But they sure are good & strong. Music was a good mix of different types of old school & more current songs. But my friends & I had a blast dancing the night away.

I’m a dancer but my husband isn’t sooo when I heard that they offer free Salsa lessons on Thursday, I decided to drag one of my good friends out with me and give it a try! We got there a little early so the place was pretty dead but the bar tender was friendly and poured us some good drinks before the classes started. Once the classes got going there was a pretty nice crowd of beginners willing to learn. The teacher was really helpful and patient and she really just went over the basic steps so nothing complicated. The party really starts once the classes were over though. I guess this is the hang out for all of the Salsa lovers or professional dancers because it seemed like everyone knew each other and recognized each other. My friend and I had a really good time watching the good dancers and attempting to keep up with them. I think I learned a thing or two.

I went to the Q Bar recently and it was very disappointing. The bar is very dark and has a ghetto feel to it. Surprising since the Hotel Albuquerque is such a beautiful place to visit. I had to wait for almost two hours for a Server. The place was very busy and very understaffed. My friend had to order some food at the bar. Which the bartender was not very happy about doing. But we were hungry and our server was not coming to us. So what were we supposed to do? We ordered the Chicken Skewers that were supposed to come with rice noodles. When we received our appetizer. The plate had just five Chicken Skewers. There were no rice noodles and it looked very unappealing. The chicken Skewers were very good, not dry at all and the flavors were delicious. However, the appetizer was not worth the $ 10 we paid for them. When our Server finally came to us. She was very nice but it did not make up for the almost two hour wait. I am a wheelchair user and the way the tables and chairs are situated. There is no clear path to getting around. This place is NOT wheelchair accessible. When I got to my table I was stuck there due to this problem and felt trapped. I will not be going back to the Q Bar. The food is overpriced, service is not existent, not wheelchair accessible and the atmosphere does not live up to the Hotel Albuquerque standards of elegance.

I’ve never been here before but after receiving VIP tickets for the Breaking Bad series conclusion, I had to go. The bar looks nice and generic, though some of the large murals on the wall are absurdly ugly (and yes, I know enough about art to know interesting art… this is just ugly).
Issue 1: The Management
Tonight’s event required tickets, so the bar knew they were going to have a certain amount of people show up at a specific time. Why then was it understaffed? I had to go to the bar to order drinks and hors oeuvres, and while the drinks arrived on time, my glass was taken away before I was finished. The hors oeuvres took a ½ hour to arrive. To top it off, I went up to the bar to wait for the tab and after 10 minutes asked the server, only to learn, «I left the ticket and your card the table.» Really?! You left the card at an empty table? Sigh.
Issue 2: Sexy Server Costumes
Why were the female servers wearing «sexy policy officer» outfits? If I want to go to a sleazy bar where women are forced to wear stupid outfits I’ll head to the Library on Central Ave. Costumes would have been okay, *maybe*, but only if they related to the show. Ugh.
Issue 3: Special Events are Not Special
I was expecting something… anything… special about tonight, especially since it was the end of an award winning show. Perhaps a margarita with blue rock salt, or cakes with blue sugar. something show related. Heck, friends of mine had better themed viewing parties. The event seemed like any other night… Sigh, I should just lower my expectations when I go out. Meh.
Bottom Line: Skip It.
I want a quality location, good service, and a tasty drink. The place can be a dive — but go all out with the dive status! Q’s website touts the location as «Albuquerque’s premier lounge», but management clearly misses a great opportunity. Just skip it.

Stayed at The Hotel Albuquerque over the weekend for a wedding. The party we were with was renting 27 rooms in the hotel over the three day span. After the rehearsal dinner Friday night, we decided to stay local and check out the «Q Bar». Most of the party was starting to settle comfortably awaiting the bride and grooms arrival before security at the front stopped the groom on the way in, and told him his shoes too closely resembled sneakers and he needed dress shoes. Are you serious?
The general manager of the «Q Bar» and neighboring «Casa Esencia» came out and flatly denied the grooms entry due to his shoes claiming, «we had a pretty big fight last weekend». What a joke. In one terrible business decision he successfully emptied his bar, as the 40+ people in the party decided to take our our money to a bar on the other side of the hotel. Would not recommend

Not a huge fan of the «club scene» here on weekends, BUT some friends and I popped in for an early drink on a Thursday evening (around 8:00pm) and were pleasantly surprised to find that they offer FREE Salsa lessons! We didn’t stay too long, but the instructor was really great and the crowd (when we went– early) was small.
Great little spot to grab a drink and Salsa dance the night away! Can’t wait to go back and try again :)

I’ve been here a handful of times. Ladies are usually free. Otherwise, it’s a $ 10 cover. You can use the Unilocal check-​in feature and get free cover on a Friday! The drinks are good and strong, but also expensive. The places to sit are usually taken and to sit by the dance floor you have to pay a pretty hefty bottle service/​sitting fee. The music is usually pretty good. I’ve seen a few fights break out and there’s usually some kind of drama, but it usually doesn’t deter me. I like the fact that people dress up to go there.

We had a good time, but I think it’s because of the group I went with. It’s kind of stuffy since it’s completely indoors with no windows. I was surprised that they serve buckets of beer as their bottle service. Not really much to say about this place…

NOT IMPRESSED.
OVERALL: The ambiance was OK. They tried to hard to be an upscale club, but failed. The décor is OK. Dim lighting, but everything is so scrunched together, it looks more crowded than it really is. There were a few hoodboogers in the club, but I guess that’s to be expected. The age range was good (old and young alike came out to have a good time)
NOTE: To get into the lounge, it’s best to get there BEFORE 10. Who goes clubbing BEFORE 10PM? Ah that’s right. I have to remember that I am no longer living in NYC where things don’t start to jump off until 12AM. So, after waiting online for almost 2 hours, we finally got in.*** (Security has NO idea how to be dominant, and tell people NOT to cut the line. Grow some balls gentlemen, and do your job diligently)
DRINKS:The website offers a list of drinks. As per the bartender, they dont have a drink menu anymore. In fact, I was told that the person who orders the liquor has NO clue as to what to order. TSK TSK TSK, they didn’t have anything I wanted to drink.
They ran out of Ciroc, didnt have grey goose ran out of Ginger ale, and were running low on Pineapple Juice. C’mon
MUSIC: Someone commented that the DJs were some of the best they’ve heard in the world. WTF did you travel to buddy? The music was mediocre at best. The DJ was all over the place. hip hop one minute, techno the next. Selection was really outdated. I made a song request, and the DJ had never even heard of the song. *throwing rocks* BOOOOOO

I wish I could give them a better rating but their staff left me with a very bad taste in my mouth.
I took my wife their to watch Vanilla Pop. They were entertaining as always but at the end of the night they waitress closed my tab without bringing me a breakdown. All she brought was the credit card receipt. It was $ 56 for 5 drinks. I knew it was a bit pricey but I told her it didn’t look right and she said she forgot to take off a drink I ordered that they had ran out of. She comes back and it went from $ 56 to $ 42 for 1 non-​alcoholic beer. On top of trying to rip me off she also decided herself that my wife should have the $ 9 Grey Goose instead of the well vodka she asked for. Her response was that it was only a dollar more than well.
When we spoke to the manager about the whole ordeal he didn’t seem to upset about the fact that his staff is trying to rip their customers off. He offered to buy my wife another drink for her troubles.
If you have a waitress named Lacee make sure to get a breakdown of what she is charging you for. She tries to prey on drunk people and hope they don’t notice her thieving ways. The worst part for me is that she gave good service and would have gotten a good tip had she not tried to rip me off.
This place can be good but the staff and management bring it down.

About 10 minutes away from Qbar is the Hard Rock Casino. There was a club in there that was much bigger and looked great. So my question is, why would you even consider going to Qbar? I guess if you want a place that’s totally La-​Ti-​Da, then Qbar is the place.
Anyways, we decided to go to Hard Rock Casino after being kicked from Qbar’s line, and ended up winning over $ 300 there. I guess I should thank them for kicking us =].

So I went there on a Friday night… that was my first and last time there.
To me, it felt like it was trying too hard to be a hip and cool, LA-​type bar, but it was not.
And there were a bunch of cops there at one point… not sure why… it was kind of weird.
at the end of the night, right b4 they closed, my friend went outside the glass doors to go to the restroom. (the restrooms are located just outside the bar). then after they «closed,» the bouncers wouldn’t let me go through the glass doors to meet up w/​her. they told me to go out the back door and then go and try & find her in the parking lot… at one point, my friend and i were looking at each other through the glass doors, but they wouldn’t let her back in or me out! they were letting other ppl out the doors though!
in conclusion, not a fan and not planning on a return trip

Been here several times for happy hour and once for the club.
Nicely decorated and nice vibe. Pretty swanky place for Alb. Earlier in the evening it can be pretty empty. Once went when they had someone playing piano and someone singing and there was almost no one there except the performers and a few of their friends. Went another night and there was some sort of Catholic convention at the hotel so there were a lot of priest and at least 1 archbishop walking around lobby outside the bar.
Service can be hit and miss. During the weekend, later in the evening, Qbar turns into a club. Often there is a DJ but sometimes they have a live band. The one time I was there for the club the music was good and it was pretty crowded.
TIP — they have dress code so later in the evening don’t come wearing a t-​shirt or sneakers.
TIP — on most evenings from 4 to 7 they have a happy hour. The drinks costs less and their appetizer menu is ½ price. Food is pretty good not a bad price during happy hour.