Attention fans of El Rancho Grande: the Meza family is opening a second restaurant on Hope Street . . . tonight! Gail Ciampa writes in the ProJo:
The new place at 100 Hope Street is the former location of Guido’s and Big Alice’s. Named after his grandmother Dolores, Joaquin Meza promises contemporary food from the Mixteca Region, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, and from chef Maria Meza. There will be a unique bar program focused on distilled agave spirits from purveyors producing small-batch and environmentally responsible spirits.
My Spanish is a little rusty (in that I never had any so I’m extrapolating from Italian, Latin, and Los Espookys) but I think the handwritten sign on the door says “No entrance before 4:30.” (And that would apply for tonight, Wednesday, November 27.)
Then they will be closed Thursday for Thanksgiving, and then they will open again from Friday through Monday. After that, Dolores will be open:
Wednesday through Monday for dinner from 4-10 p.m. The restaurant will be closed on Tuesdays. On Jan. 15, the restaurant will begin serving lunch from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
I don’t know how Maria is going to visit every table, every night, at both restaurants simultaneously, but she’ll figure it out.
As to that bar: Because they are within 100 feet of a school and a church, their liquor license required an appeal to the general assembly, who finally got something right! More at RI Monthly.
They are focusing on boutique tequila and mezcal distilleries that are involved with the Bat-Friendly Tequila and Mezcal Project and the Tequila Interchange Project, which work to protect the bats and their ecosystems. Bats pollinate the blue agave plants that produce tequila and mezcal; without them, there is no tequila or mezcal. “The bats are pollinators and the populations are being decimated for the lack of food,” Joaquin says. “Their ecosystem was completely destroyed.”
How many times have I wished that El Rancho Grande was closer to home? And how many times have I wondered what the heck is going on with this corner? Well, I could not have hoped for a more perfect outcome, and this is certainly something we can all be thankful for.
Dolores, 100 Hope Street, (directions)
