Nambé Pueblo launched its largest retail venture Tuesday when the Nambé Falls Travel Center opened its doors to offer bio-fuels, specialty coffee drinks, hand-made American Indian pottery and fast-food meals.

Located on U.S. 84/285 between Pojoaque and Cuyamunge — adjacent Pojoaque Pueblo's massive Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino — the travel center is the first installment of a retail and entertainment complex that Nambé plans to develop on land it traded a few years ago with Pojoaque to obtain highway frontage.

Within the next year, the pueblo plans to open a small casino alongside the new travel center, said Nambé Pueblo Development Corp. president George Yates. A five-year plan calls for a strip-mall development with as many as a dozen stores, including a Walgreens, further south on the same site, Yates said.

Travel Center manager John Woodworth said the new convenience-store complex was designed to be a destination for drivers. "It's not your typical travel center," he said.

Customers were lined up and waiting when the Arby's fast-food counter opened around 10:30 a.m. Monday. "We've got tourists, we've got commuters, and we've got locals," said Arby's manager Tony Delgado.

Two hours later, the restaurant had made $2,000 and was on track to end the day 50 percent ahead of projected income, Delgado said. The main store opened around noon.

A lounge inside Java Joe's — complete with a two-sided fireplace — attracted mostly vendors and store staff working out details on the first day. Throughout the day, neighbors stopped in to check out the new business, mingling in the store aisles, where glass cases displayed hand-crafted jewelry and racks displayed authentic Pendleton blankets.

"Usually I cook," said Cuyamunge resident Frankie Gomez as she hauled home a big sack of Arby's fast food for her family's dinner. She said more fast-food dinners are likely at her home now that the new restaurant is available.

Prices for gasoline — which includes 10-percent ethanol at every pump — started 6 cents lower than those posted at nearby stations. Woodworth said fuel prices will likely remain at or below those of competitors nearby. The new store also opened with competitive prices for tobacco products and alcoholic beverages, including those in a walk-in beer cooler and in an ample selection of microbrew beer brands.

Nambé's largest retail venture does not include a gambling operation, and Nambé has yet to open any gambling business. The pueblo has developed plans for a casino, but in recent months has dramatically changed plans for both the scale and the management of such a venture.

Until March, Nambé had been working with Full House Resorts to develop and manage a 50,000-square-foot casino near the location of the new travel center, but a management agreement was never finalized. By December, Full House was reporting it had urged Nambé to scale back casino plans, citing Pojoaque's move to put 16 acres of destination resort under one roof next door, including 146,300 square feet of casino space.

In March, Full House announced it was no longer working with Nambé on plans to develop and manage a casino, and expected to recoup all but $200,000 of $655,000 it had advanced Nambé for the project.

On Tuesday, Yates and former chairman of Nambé Pueblo Gaming Enterprise Board, David Perez, acknowledged Full House is due a refund, but said the contract specified refunds on advances for projects not finished would come from the pueblo's gambling revenue. So far, Nambé has none.

Yates said the pueblo's long-range plans still call for a larger casino eventually, but definitely not under a management contract. Such an arrangement, as the pueblo had reached with Full House, was unique in New Mexico and could have reduced the tribe's casino income, Yates said.

Within the next year, Nambé Pueblo Development Corp. plans to open a casino with about 200 slot machines beside the new travel center, Yates said. That casino would be physically separate from the travel center, in part to satisfy investors' requirements, Yates said.

Yates said a larger casino has not been ruled out of Nambé's long-range business plan. Nambé has explored several business plans, including a wholesale gasoline business that operated for about 10 years, a landfill that was never opened and a water bottling plant that is ready to open but on hold.

Excavation work for a 400-home commercial housing development is well under way, and plans have recently been floated for a major windmill farm to produce electricity, Yates said.

"We've had a lot of false starts," Yates said. "We've had a number of ventures that looked like they would turn into something fruitful, but never were consummated."

Judging by the number of customers on opening day, the travel center that opened Monday appears to be a workable venture. Woodworth said the store is well located to tap into a ready clientele of staff and guests at Pojoaque's' new resort.

The new store also fills a void left by two convenience stores that closed after the state reconstructed U.S. 84/285 as a limited access highway, isolating former roadside businesses in Cuyamunge.

Woodworth said the store opened with a staff of 39. Hours are from 5 a.m. till 11 p.m. at the store and from 6 a.m. till 10 p.m. at Arby's, and the fuel pumps are always open. A retail post office is set to open in about two weeks, and Woodworth said negotiations are under way to have rental mail boxes installed.

Contact David Collins at 986-3064 or dcollins@sfnewmexican.com.