It has been a minute since my last visit to Clovis, which was mainly to join some East Coast relatives back in 2023 to see my cousin whose Air Force husband is stationed out there.

As we always have in the past, there was a visit to Bandolero Brewery on that trip. The downtown Clovis brewery had become one of our must-visit spots, with some quality brews lined up alongside a great food menu.

My cousin and her family are soon relocating to the other side of the country, and as it turns out, it appears those visits to Bandolero are apparently over regardless of whether they are living in Clovis or not.

A co-worker from my actual paying job is relocating to Clovis (her husband is in the Air Force, too), and as I tried to show her where there is to eat in the eastern New Mexico town, we discovered that Google now lists Bandolero as permanently closed.

Now, we wrote a while back about how Bandolero had been listed for sale so the owners could retire, but this was the first indication that not only did a sale not happen, but that they have seemingly just decided to close the brewery entirely.

The Bandolero Brewery website is gone, as are their social media pages. There is not much in the way of local media left in the eastern part of the state so no stories have been written on Bandolero in quite a while.

For all intents and purposes, we feel pretty comfortable adding Bandolero to the list of breweries that have closed since the 2020-21 COVID pandemic shutdown period. Nearby Roosevelt Brewing in Portales also closed back in 2024. Red Door is now the only brewery in that part of the state.

It’s a sad, quiet end to a place that brought a lot of joy to the Clovis community. My cousin said that many of the Cannon Air Force Base personnel frequented the brewery. We always enjoyed our visits with the friendly staff.

Maybe someday another brewery will open in that spot. It occupies a prime slice of real estate in a downtown area that Clovis has been trying hard to revive.

Until then, you all know what to do.

Keep supporting local!

— Stoutmeister