Cattails Golf Course gets new restaurant operators

JUNIOR Atencio and Eddie Valdez will be the next duo to try their luck operating the restaurant space at the public Cattails Golf Course. Atencio and Valdez presented their ideas to the city and the Cattails Golf Board and have been selected to begin operating out of the restaurant come December and into 2023.

“It’s been a struggle,” Alamosa Economic Development Director Kathy Woods told the Alamosa City Council this week of keeping a restaurateur at the public golf course. 

She’s hopeful Atencio and Valdez will end the revolving door of operators at the golf course restaurant.

Atencio, who is selling Atencio’s Market, plans to keep things simple and cater at first to the golf crowd and then work to branch out to larger public gatherings. With golf largely on hiatus for the winter, the off-season will allow for indoor gatherings and let Atencio and Valdez test their ideas for food on the people they know best, the duffers who see Cattails as their second home.

Think burgers, sub sandwiches, TVs with sports on the channels, gatherings for events like the Super Bowl and other sports-themed activities. 

“They have some ideas to generate some revenue in the offseason, too,” said Jon Atencio, who is the city’s golf pro and general manager at Cattails and also Junior Atencio’s son. The idea of corn hole tournaments and Turkey Day trot in future years and other ways to utilize both the restaurant space and the surrounding outdoor environment are part of the plan.

Rogers told the city council that the city had five proposals presented to the golf board, and the simple menu plan from Atencio and Valdez won the day.

“We’re hopeful,” she said of the new operators and their strategy.