St. Patrick’s Day celebrations return to Albuquerque

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – What better way to invite the luck of the Irish than with green drinks?

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, Downshift Brewery in Old Town is serving festive beers by day, and a creative outlet by night. Mobile paint service, The Rebel Easle, is kicking off a beer mug paint party at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

"You can do clovers, you can do a little pot of gold if you want to, but again I’m going to have stencils, so you can do hot air balloons and chiles and all kinds of things," said Alicia Archibeque, the owner of The Rebel Easle. "It’s just super fun, just hanging out with your friends, painting and having some green beer."

It has been years since people have been able to actually go out for the Irish holiday, due to the pandemic. Two Fools Tavern in Nob Hill has not hosted a celebration since 2019. They say they are happy to reintroduce St. Patrick’s Day bagpipers, Irish lamb stew, bacon and cabbage Thursday night.

"The supply chain’s still fairly broken, so we’ve had to kind of scramble around a little bit to make this kind of volume of sales work in one day," said Two Fools’ Owner Russell Reid. "It’s been really fun. Everyone’s been really happy and excited to be here today."

KOB 4 talked to several people waiting outside the tavern who said the same thing. They are happy to be back out, celebrating in person.

"It feels great actually,” said Fernando Tercero, who was standing in line with his daughter. “I was pretty excited. I was able to get the day off from work."

"It’s super exciting,” said Rachel Sweeney, also waiting to get into Two Fools. “We actually had a trip to Ireland planned the year of 2020, and it got canceled, so we’ve been trying to make up for it ever since, so anything we can do to celebrate is awesome."