The Upper Valley Weekend That Only Locals Know About

For decades, the shorthand for living near El Paso Country Club has been the golf course, the pecan groves, and the long, slow drive down Country Club Road. Residents who have been here twenty years can tell you which season the acequias run and which stretch of Mesa Street gets the best afternoon light. What they may not have caught, because it happened without a ribbon cutting, is that the restaurant at the end of that drive turned into one of the more serious kitchens in the Southwest.

If your Saturday routine is grocery, coffee, and a walk, this is a case for rearranging it. The chef-driven, farm-to-table loop that food writers usually go looking for in Santa Fe or Marfa now runs through your neighborhood, and most of it happens before 1:00 PM.

The quiet reason to pay attention this year

Ardovino's Desert Crossing has been sitting near Mount Cristo Rey since 1949, and for most of that time the pitch was Italian-American comfort food and retro ambience. That framing is out of date. Under the stewardship of Danny Calleros, the old-school favorite has become a destination for chef-driven cooking, an effort that recently earned Calleros a James Beard Award semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: Southwest, making him the only nominee from southern New Mexico recognized this year.

That is the sentence to reread. A James Beard semifinalist nod is the kind of recognition that reshapes a city's food map, and it landed at a restaurant you can reach from Country Club Road in under fifteen minutes.

The cooking backs up the plaque. While longtime guests still come for the wood-fired pizzas and house-made pastas, Calleros elevates those staples with ingredients like toasted local pecans, fermented garlic, and totomoxtle (corn husk ash). The restaurant also grows many of its own herbs and vegetables, including basil, squash, radishes, and carrots, just steps from the kitchen. "Having your own basil is invaluable," says co-owner Robert Ardovino, whose uncle founded the family business in 1949.

"I want to be as close to the community and provide and support," Calleros says of sourcing locally, including from the farmers' market Ardovino's hosts each Saturday. "I always tell the farmers, 'Whatever you don't sell, I'll buy.'"

That standing offer is the hinge for everything below. The farmers who set up outside on Saturday morning are the same farmers whose produce ends up on the plate that night. It is not a marketing line. It is a supply chain shorter than the drive home.

Saturday morning is the whole point

The Farmers' Market at Ardovino's is in its 25th Anniversary Season. That is not a soft-launch pop-up. The market runs year-round on Saturdays from 9 AM to 1 PM at 1 Ardovinos Drive in Sunland Park, and the 2026 season is scheduled January 24 through December 19. Spring and summer hours actually start earlier, 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM, with fall and winter running 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

If you have driven past without stopping, here is what you have been missing:

• Organic and pesticide-free produce, pasture-raised pork, fresh-baked breads, vegan cheeses, homemade jams, locally roasted coffee beans, and salsas, from a market that has been building this vendor list for 26 years.
• Yoga at the Market at 9:30 AM every week, with a rotating lineup of guest instructors.
• Sip and Paint Parties with La Buena Paint Parties, plus Pet Adoption Day on the last Saturday of every month with local rescue groups.
• Leashed, well-behaved pets are welcome.
• The CoffeeStream airstream for a fair-trade coffee, fresh-squeezed juice, or a pastry while you shop.

The rhythm most regulars settle into: yoga at 9:30, coffee after, produce and bread before you leave, brunch on the patio if you have the morning free. Reservations later that night at Ardovino's, ordering whatever appears on the specials board with the ingredient you just watched a farmer sell three hours earlier.

Two dates worth writing down for later in the year. The 22nd Annual Holiday Market lands on Saturday, November 28, 2026, open to the public 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Pride Market is May 30, 2026. Both draw a wider vendor pool than the weekly market and are worth the drive even if you skip the Saturday routine the rest of the year.

Sunday belongs to Mesa

If Saturday is Sunland Park, Sunday is closer to home. The Upper Valley Artist & Farmers Market runs every Sunday on the Westside with more than 100 local small businesses in one place. It skews more craft and prepared food than the ADC market, which is the point. You are not buying the same tomatoes twice. You are picking up the ceramics, candles, hot sauce, and tamales that fill the gap between what the grocery store carries and what a chef would put on a plate.

The two markets are not competitors. They are a two-day weekend that only works if you treat them as one.

Why this loop only exists here

The reason a farm-to-table circuit works in the Upper Valley and not, say, on the East Side, comes down to dirt and water. Soil and groundwater in the Upper Valley generally contain lower levels of salt; groundwater becomes saltier the further east you are of the Franklin Mountains. That single fact is why serious growers cluster here.

"If you do not have a well and your life is 100% dependent on the river allocation, you are done," said Isaiah Ulmer, a grower who farms about 600 acres in the Upper Valley near the New Mexico-Texas state line. Ulmer is describing pecans specifically, but the logic extends to almost everything grown commercially in the valley. The El Paso region is one of the nation's biggest pecan-producing hubs, and the harvest generally begins in November.

Practical translation: from roughly November through early spring, the pecans on the Ardovino's menu and at both markets are almost certainly from orchards you can see from the road. That is the "toasted local pecans" line on the menu earning its keep. If you have never bought a pound of green-husk-fresh pecans direct from a Saturday vendor and toasted them at home, this is the year to fix that.

What this changes for people who already live here

The El Paso Country Club neighborhood has always sold itself on the country club, the mature landscaping, and the drive-in-and-exhale quiet of the Upper Valley. That is still true. What is new is that the case for staying in on a Saturday, or driving into Cimarron for a chain dinner, has gotten much weaker. A fifteen-minute drive puts you at a James Beard semifinalist's kitchen, sourcing from farmers you can meet in the parking lot that morning.

For anyone thinking about the long arc of this area — resale value, weekend routines, what you tell a friend visiting from out of state — the shift matters. Neighborhoods hold their reputation partly on the strength of what surrounds them. The country club, the golf course, and the tree canopy on Country Club Road have carried that weight for a long time. The food scene at the western edge of the neighborhood is now pulling its share.

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The neighborhood you moved into and the neighborhood you live in now are not quite the same place. That is a good thing, and it does not require you to change a single thing about your address.

When you are ready to talk about what this shift means for your home's value, or you are helping a family member decide whether the Upper Valley is the right fit for their next chapter, Cornerstone Realty has been quietly tracking this neighborhood the same way we hope you'll start tracking your Saturday mornings. Reach out any time, or request a free home valuation when the time feels right.