'Very, very lucky today': Owner of popular Old Town restaurant appreciative fire was not worse

May 21—High Noon Restaurant and Saloon owner Carla Villa said she is fortunate that her nearly 50-year-old business did not receive more damage from a Tuesday morning fire.

According to an Albuquerque Fire Rescue Facebook post, firefighters responded to a call of a fire at 6:30 a.m. at the restaurant in the 400 block of San Felipe NW, near Mountain. It took firefighters about 10 minutes to put out the fire. No one was hurt.

"I'm very thankful for whoever called it in so quickly," she said.

Villa said the only damage was to the restaurant's electrical system and dry storage area where perishables had been stored. The food was not burned and was donated to the Roadrunner Food Bank.

The adobe wall acted as a "firewall" and prevented the fire from spreading, she said, adding that she felt "very, very lucky today."

Fire Rescue's Facebook post states the cause of the fire is still being investigated. However, Villa said she learned from Fire Rescue that someone tried stealing copper wire atop the restaurant roof, which "caused a live wire arc that sparked the fire."

For Villa, the incident sparked a flashback from over 50 years ago.

'I'm super grateful'

On Tuesday afternoon, Villa showed a picture on her cellphone of a June 1971 Journal article with a photo of her dad's store. "Cee-Vee Stores Looted, Burned," the headline reads.

In 1971, Charley Villa owned a liquor store and gas station near Roosevelt Park called Cee-Vee Liquors. Carla said he had planned to open up a Cee-Vee in "all four quadrants in the city." The plan changed during the Roosevelt Park riots, when his business was looted and set on fire.

But that did not deter Charley Villa from pursuing his entrepreneurial dreams.

Carla said months after her father lost his business, he got a moving truck and operated a "portable beer wagon" at stock car races. But soon after that, he reached a crossroads: sell his liquor license and perhaps look into another line of work, or use the license somewhere it can be used.

"That was when he decided he liked Old Town," Carla said.

Charley and his wife, Shirley Villa, bought what would become High Noon. The property included a building built sometime between the 1750s and 1780s that now houses the restaurant's front entrance and a dining room, Carla said. According to the restaurant's website, the original building remained an apartment until High Noon took over. Its last reported tenant was a nun.

While the Villas were turning the building into a restaurant, Carla said Charley tried to make an appointment with "a lawyer or contractor" to talk about the property. To settle on an exact time, she said, her dad said, "How about high noon?"

When her parents were thinking about a name for the business, Carla said they thought High Noon "sounded great."

"High Noon came to life because of that riot, for sure," Carla said.

The restaurant opened on July 3, 1974, but instead of preparing for High Noon's 50th anniversary, Carla is left trying to pick up the pieces from the fire.

As employees and others shoveled burnt debris into a trailer, she walked inside the restaurant and stopped to look at a photo on the wall behind a bar of Carla and her parents sitting at a table inside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.

"I'm super grateful it was not a total loss," she said.

There is no timeline as to when the restaurant will reopen.

"We will be back as soon as the electrical is reinstalled and inspected, and we get the green light from PNM and the city," she said. "It also depends on the supply chain (issues). If the materials are here in town, it will be open a lot quicker."