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Puesto, a popular San Diego-based chain of Mexican restaurants that will celebrate its 15th anniversary early next year, has just opened its first eatery outside California — in Nashville.
The newest opening, which was last month, signals Puesto’s larger ambitions to expand more broadly than just in California. Its owners say they are scanning the country for multiple locations, from Arizona and Texas to Florida and the East Coast.
The Nashville restaurant, at 5,200 square feet, not including patio space, is not Puesto’s largest, but it is certainly much bigger than the La Jolla location, which was the first to open nearly 15 years ago.
Larger still is the Mission Valley Puesto that is more than 9,000 square feet in size and opened in 2020 not long after the start of the pandemic. The new Nashville eatery marks the ninth Puesto location.
There are three in San Diego, several more in Orange County, plus locations in Santa Clara and Concord.
“San Diego and California are definitely still our base, and we all live in San Diego, but we’ve been looking to expand out of California also, and we really fell in love with Nashville for many reasons,” said co-owner Eric Adler.
“First, our par tner — our cousin — went to Vanderbilt, so that kind of got us really looking at Nashville, and then we also had a lot of people from San Diego who have moved there and helped us a lot with site selection.
“There’s just a lot of growth in Nashville, a lot of companies moving here, and it’s the music capital.
It’s just a fun place.” It also helps that the new restaurant moved into what’s called Nashville Yards, a sprawling downtown mixed-use development that includes a state-of-the-art indoor live music and event venue; luxury condos; hotels; and high-rise office towers anchored by Amazon, which provide built-in customer traffic.
The Puesto chain is a family affair owned by brothers Alex, Eric and Alan Adler, along with cousins Isidoro and Moy Lombrozo. The ownership invested roughly $7 million to build out the Nashville restaurant, said Alex Adler.
The restaurants are known for their tacos, margaritas and organic blue-corn tortillas that are hand-pressed daily.
The menu is largely similar to the dishes you would find at the California locations, although there are some new offerings just for Nashville, like the “lava stone tablitas,” featuring a choice of bone-in short ribs, filet mignon and ribeye steak.
Also new are the “platos fuertes” that are protein-centered and offer lighter entree choices like chicken mole, grilled branzino and carne asada. What’s even more distinctive is the decor, which was created just for the Nashville location.
“We’ve had more of an industrial look in the past, while this is very Mexico City, with a lot of concrete, acid wash, Venetian plaster with bright colors and a lot of tile patterns,” said Eric Adler.
“Besides the fact that we have a lot of hot ink, we worked with a Nashville designer, and our goal was to make it feel like Mexico City-modern and also kind of a little bit retro. And we also wanted it to have more of a nighttime atmosphere with dim lights.
We know that Nashville appeals to later dining, so we wanted it to feel moodier, and the bar feels more like a cocktail lounge.” Adding to the Mexico City vibe is a large mural on one wall that Alex Adler describes as reflecting the vibrancy of parts of Mexico.
“We wanted it to feel bold, vibrant and full of life, with the stepped pyramids of Teotihuacan, nopal cactus, agave, tropical plants and a glowing sun all coming together to reflect the depth, energy and beauty of M exico’s history, culture and landscape,” he said.
“The goal was for it to feel colorful, contemporary and distinctly Mexican while still feeling elevated and fresh.” The full-service Puesto restaurants are not the only brand within the family’s dining portfolio.
The owners opened early this year a fast-casual concept called the Puesto Taco Bar in Sorrento Mesa, although it was done in conjunction with the Alexandria real estate group. And four years ago, they debuted Marisi, an elevated Italian restaurant in La Jolla.
Alex Adler describes Puesto’s future growth plans as deliberate, stressing that there is no rush to expand rapidly. “The reality is we might open three in one year, or we might open one in the next few years,” he said.
“We’re just very opportunistic, and it has served us well over the last 15 years. We don’t plan on taking capital like many of these other groups do.
If we wanted to take capital and grow that way, I’m sure we could be in that world where it’s like, let’s grow many of them at once, but we really care about the quality and experience in what we’re doing. “It’s not to say that you can’t do it the other way, but we just haven’t taken that road.”
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