Joe's Pasta House opens second location in Albuquerque

ALBUQUERQUE — After more than two decades in existence, Joe’s Pasta House opened a second location off of Holly Avenue in Albuquerque.

Yusuf Shariff, a member of the family that took over the business three years ago from founder Joe Guzzardi and his wife Kassie, said the opening is very exciting for them. It celebrated a grand opening Aug. 6.

Shariff reassured that this new location will essentially be the same as Joe’s in Rio Rancho.

“Everything’s exactly the same as Rio Rancho. The only difference that we have here in Albuquerque is we have a full bar,” he said.

He added that people can expect a list of craft cocktails put together by Joe’s. Apart from that, the menu will be unchanged, he said.

There will also be some familiar faces at the Albuquerque location.

“We have Chef Rick, who’s been with Joe’s pasta for 26 years now. He was at Rio Rancho, and he’s going to be here in Albuquerque,” Shariff said.

The reason for the opening has a lot to do with people requesting another location, according to Shariff.

“I would go through the social media for Joe’s; we keep looking at what people say, and some of the feedback and a lot of people would say, ‘I wish there was a Joe’s closer than 25 minutes,’” he said.

For him, it was strange at first to hear 25 minutes because in California, where he’s from, 25 minutes is different from 25 minutes in New Mexico. But now that he has been in the community and witnessed the travel that most residents are used to, he said he completely understands why people would make such a request.

He said he also felt that Rio Rancho Joe’s had outgrown its capacity.

However, he stressed that original Joe’s still holds a place in the Shariff family’s heart.

“My family has grown so close with so many people here, whether it’s guests or community leaders in the area,” he said.

He said when the idea of the new location came about, they made sure to ask the community in their restaurant if it was something they truly wanted. The consensus was that they should move forward with it.

Just like the menu and look of the restaurant won’t change, Shariff said the values and morals that Joe’s was founded on will stay the same as well.

“We always remind ourselves that Joe started this as a family-run business; these recipes came from his grandmother. He ran this with his wife, and he purposely sold this to our family. It’s always important to remind ourselves this is a family business. It’s a restaurant that’s built on family recipes and traditions. We want to make sure we always stay true to that,” he said.

These values will reflect in the quality of food, guest treatment and community engagement. One way Shariff said Joe’s upheld the community aspect at the opening was a curated, ticketed menu that raised funds for the Rio Grande Food Project.

“We wanted to make sure we kick it off with doing a charity event to stay true to what we’ve done at Rio Rancho. We wanted to start off the right foot,” he said.

Joe’s has worked on the food project before, so Shariff saw it as the “perfect match” to do again.

Again, Shariff stressed the importance of maintaining tradition at Joe’s.

“We really want to make sure we hold that tradition because it feels like Joe’s legacy,” he said.

Since acquiring ownership of the restaurant, Shariff said they have not changed recipes, vendors or anything that Joe started.

“I think we’re really excited for this next chapter, and I think we’re really excited to meet everyone in this community and start new partnerships with communities and charities in Albuquerque,” he said.

For more information, visit joespastahouse.com.