Check Out Missoula’s Exciting New Mexican Bar & Restaurant

If anyone wants a crash course on the future of food in Western Montana, they should check in with the Pangea Group in Missoula.

The partners have already reformed their namesake restaurant downtown and expanded the "Liquid Planet" brand with the transformation of the old Brooks Street Denny's.

Now, after a few months of incredibly hard work, they've opened the new Elote Mexican Bar and Grill, turning the shuttered Red Robin location at the Southgate Mall into an explosion of taste and color.

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A successful "soft opening"

"I mean the reason we're able to do this fairly quickly is we really hired an internal contracting crew and we just lived here every day for the last four months," Pangea Partners Scott Billadeau told me when he invited me over Friday for the first media look inside. "We made a lot of progress and in a very fast amount of time."

The finished Elote (which means "street corn") bursts with color and culture, as Head Chef Fila Lopez, his wife, and team dig deep into dishes from his native Oaxaca, with some "Tex Mex" specialties too. Pangea Chef Justin Ferguson, who recruited Lopez, praises his authenticity, and the focus on fresh, locally sourced organic ingredients.

Dining as an "experience"

"We wanted to create like a true, Mexican experience here so that you feel like you're almost in a Mexican villa," Billadeau explains. "And part of that is because we knew we were going to recruit in a Oaxacan chef from Mexico. And so we knew the food was going to be amazing. Well, then the the space and the feel has to be amazing to go with it. And so that was what we were striving for. And I feel like we achieved that."

The experience extends to the vibrant art; a massive mural on the south wall celebrating the "Day of the Dead", to authentic sombreros and masks, hand-produced Mexican tile accents, and a stunning tin ceiling. The margarita bar is the largest in Montana.

Celebrations to start

The restaurant is still hoping for its state liquor license to be issued this next week. In the meantime, they're celebrating May with "Quatro de Mayo", or "Star Wars Day" Saturday, with anyone who orders a "Mockarita" entered in a drawing to win an impressive light saber.

For Cinco de Mayo Sunday, customers ordering a Mockarita get a coupon for a free margarita, or Mexican beer on tap when the license arrives.