In the former Charcoal Pit, an ambitious Mexican restaurant with tacos and barbacoa
Kirkwood Highway continues to be flooded with Mexican cuisine, as New Castle County cements its role as the densest home to Mexican food and culture anywhere near Philadelphia.
As of Saturday, June 1, the storied former home of the "Big Pit" location of Charcoal Pit, and Alyson's Restaurant before that, is now a sprawling 5,000-square-foot restaurant and cantina at 714 Greenbank Road home to tacos, huaraches, enchiladas and long-braised birria or barbacoa.
El Patron Mexican Restaurant and Bar celebrated its grand opening Saturday with dancing, music, balloons and a wealth of specialties from Mexico City to the southwestern state of Guanajuato.
El Patron already may be familiar to diners in Bear, where owners Maria and Hugo Ramirez have been serving an ambitious array of tacos, burritos, and weekend specials at their food truck on Pulaski Highway.
That truck is already an ambitious endeavor compared with most food trucks, with weekend specials that include slow-braised lamb barbacoa or pancita carnitas with rich consomé for sipping, birria enchiladas and tender carnitas.
The El Patron truck is still grilling tacos and huaraches on Pulaski Highway. But starting Saturday, El Patron has expanded into their full restaurant location in Prices Corner.
If news of a taqueria at this location sounds familiar, it is. Another Mexican restaurant, Salina's, opened at the former Charcoal Pit for an eyeblink at the end of 2023, before shutting down a few months later. The Bear location of Salina's is also closed, perhaps temporarily, since April.
El Patron bought into the Prices Corner location after Salina's closed at the end of March, said El Patron manager Nancy Puentes. Capano Management retains ownership of the building, according to county records.
El Patron owners have repainted the walls, and added a host of skull-themed murals that dance or grin across the walls of the capacious main dining room. A cozier dining area with banquettes, a holdover perhaps from Charcoal days, looks out on verdant greenery hanging over Red Clay Creek. A front bar still looks to be filling in its liquor shelves.
As at the sister food truck in Bear, El Patron Mexican Restaurant and Bar serves an array of quesadillas ($8-$16), huaraches ($13-$17), tacos ($3-$4), burritos ($10-$12) and massive torta sandwiches ($12-$18) with more than a dozen meat variations.
The restaurant also has taken advantage of its full kitchen by adding a menu of platters that range from enchiladas to multiple takes on chilaquiles, as well as whole-fried fish, shrimp in garlic or diablo sauce, shrimp cocktails and stone bowls heavy-laden with seemingly every version of grilled meat.
A $15 alambre platter, a Lebanese-influenced Mexico City specialty, arrived in early June as enough food for two: a heaping platter of smoked pork chop, cured bacon, steak, peppers and onions capped with a glistening layer of melted cheese, ready to be dished into warmed corn tortillas and slathered with bright salsa verde.
Staffing appeared low on a lunchtime visit during the restaurant's first days, and the space looks to still be filling in after a lightning-quick turnaround since El Patron over the space this spring — and so a little patience may be necessary during early weeks.
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The menu already offers an expanding list of weekend specials, however; videos from grand opening day show dancing and music in the dining room. Restaurant manager Nancy Puentes said they're still figuring out some of their offerings, and may announce events in the future. For now, the goal was to get food on the grill and patrons in the seats.
"We just wanted to start up pretty fast," Puentes said. "If you're not working, you're just paying bills."
Matthew Korfhage is business and development reporter in the Delaware region covering all the things that touch land and money: openings and closings, construction, and the many corporations who call the First State home. A longtime food writer, he also tends to turn up with stories about tacos, oysters and beer. Send tips and insults to [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: In Prices Corner, a massive Mexican restaurant with tacos and birria
