Madrid Revives Chile Festival

For the third summer in a row, Madrid is putting on a chile festival — an event that has previously gotten a chilly reception.

First there was the fictional chile festival seen in the motorcycle flick “Wild Hogs,” filmed in Madrid in the summer of 2006. The movie company filled the streets with noisy giant lifts, lights that illuminated practically the entire town at night and shooed visitors and locals off the streets.

But the success of the movie starring John Travolta got some locals thinking: While Madrid wasn’t exactly known for its hot peppers, why not capitalize on the movie and host a chile cook-off?

However, Connecticut businessman and Madrid landowner Ron Phillips beat them to it. Plans for the event at the village ballpark in 2007 outraged residents, who saw it as an invasion of their small town. To make matters worse, Phillips chose to spell New Mexico’s beloved chile with an “i.”

Most of the elaborate plans for the fest — like bike tours, horseback riding and rides — shriveled under opposition from residents, fearful that an outsider wanted to turn their town into Disneyland. The three-day event was reduced to one.

Meanwhile, the day of the festival, a handful of residents danced and drummed along the town’s main drag in protest, while the festival was arguably a flop, with about 70 people paying to hear performers like Fat City and Greg Roile, Santana’s original lead singer.

Now, though, Madrid is hoping to reclaim the chile festival, though the peppers are coming from Hatch.

“We’re taking back the event,” said Lori Lindsey, coowner of the famed Mine Shaft Tavern, which is putting on the daylong third festival, the Madrid Chile Fiesta, today.

“Ron Phillips was kind of an outsider and did not do an event that was communityminded at all,” said Lindsey, who was a vendor at last year’s event. “All he saw were the dollar signs.”

“And he spelled chile wrong,” she added.

Lindsey hopes the event will include a chile cook-off, but even it doesn’t she’ll still be serving fry bread with red and green chile, green chile cheeseburgers and other New Mexican favorites. Chiles will also be roasted on site.

There will also be Beau, the white buffalo, on hand, as well as music by Nosotros, Bosque Kings and the Ruebarbs.

Lindsey will also be selling T-shirts from last year’s Chili Festival. “We’re gonna take the ‘i’s’ and change them into ‘e’s,’ ” she said.

Even the homegrown chile fest, however, isn’t without its heat. While Lindsey said most residents are in support of the fiesta, a self-described “gang of five” has its reservations about the Mineshaft’s move toward outdoor music festivals in town.

“Madrid is both business and residential, and we have not had a history of loud bands playing in town ever,” said 35-year resident Diana Johnson. “That isn’t something we’ve ever had to deal with.”

Madrid’s notable blues and other music festivals take place at the community ballfield, on the outskirts of the village.

Johnson, who describes herself as the “oldest of newcomers” said residents need to come together to decide on what sorts of events Madrid should hold before the county issues anymore permits.

“Its time to have a major town meeting,” Johnson said.

If You Go

WHAT: Madrid Chile Fiesta
WHERE: The Mineshaft Tavern
WHEN: All day today
HOW MUCH: $10