Getting down to Mixteca, the new agave-centric cocktail joint at One Cornelia in New York’s West Village, has taken a few scheduling adjustments. But the bar, the brainchild of PDT’s Jeff Bell and Victor Lopez, is certainly used to a few delays.
“It’s been an eight-year process to open this,” Bell says a few weeks before the late August unveiling. A longtime fixture and current managing partner at the famed East Village speakeasy, Please Don’t Tell, Bell has long wanted to branch out and focus a bar on Lopez, a longtime and beloved bartending veteran, also at PDT. “I don’t want to force anything,” he adds. “We had an idea going back to 2017, but then there was the pandemic and a flood. But I’m a patient person.”
Bell and Lopez are heading up more than a bar. The corner space is a multi-concept venue that represents the PDT team’s first new NYC venture in 18 years, featuring three distinct experiences: the street-level cocteleria Mixteca, run by Lopez; Tacos 1986, the California-run taqueria making its East Coast debut; and Kees, a luxe retro downstairs cocktail lounge set to open this fall.
The initial inspiration for Mixteca formed from a pop-up Bell had been running at Coachella. “We do a different theme every year there, and one time they asked me to bring Crif Dogs [the hot dog joint attached to PDT] out,” he says. “I’m adventurous but pragmatic. We weren’t in a position to travel with Crif Dogs. So instead, we collaborated with Tacos 1986. I didn’t know them, but I was a huge fan.”
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We asked the experts to weigh in on their favoritesA blossoming friendship between Bell and the Tacos 1986 team inspired Bell to consider a new venue in New York. “I had always wanted to do something different than PDT, an agave concept,” he says. “It’s like, if we do an agave bar focused on Pueblo, Mexico, where Victor’s from, then we can have the food be tacos — 1986 tacos. 1986 would be busy on its own. And then you can get some tacos with your Mezcalita, Margarita, Paloma or Michelada. It sounded like a home run.”
Whatever the final concept, it was always going to involve Lopez. “I think it’s really important to align yourself with really good humans,” Bell says. “And Victor is too humble to say this, but he’s probably one of the most beloved bartenders in the city. Victor and I have worked together for 15 years. He’s been at PDT longer than me. He actually trained me behind the bar.”
PDT and Crif Dogs did provide the Mixteca team with a solid business blueprint to follow: a self-sustaining restaurant, profitable in its own right, with a bar next to it that can utilize a shared kitchen. “If you staff a kitchen and you’re not doing restaurant-volume food, it’s a huge expense and hard to be profitable,” Bell says. “At PDT, 10% of our revenue is food. I don’t know what the average is for bars around the city, but I don’t think anybody does more than 30% of their revenue with food.”
A few weeks after my initial Zoom talk with Bell and Lopez, I visited Mixteca mere hours before its official opening (a barrage of saws, hammers and drills were in constant use). Whatever you know about PDT, think the opposite for Mixteca. It’s a bright space with big windows that open out to the street. The taco joint next door already had a line out the door (and after a few bites, I’d say it’s worthy of the hype).
As for the drinks, think Mexican bar/restaurant classics with a twist. “Classics are the foundation,” Bell says. “But I think they’re a step off. Victor came up with most of these — there’s a whole Margarita section, some Micheladas, Mexican beer and wine. The cocktails are anchored between tequila and mezcal.” So think sessionable and recognizable sips and a step removed from the more culinary-based cocktails that are the current craze.
“I’m very excited about this menu,” Lopez says. “We have a green Michelada — you don’t see a lot of those, but it’s really rich in flavor and very refreshing. It’s not traditional, but still delicious.” In those first few hours, I tried a pineapple and blue curacao riff on a Margarita called La Franja, and a deconstructed shot platter of blanco tequila, sangrita and jugo verde called La Bandera (the Spanish word for flag, hence the white, red and green shot combo). There are also drinks with masa-infused tequila, a Batanga with Fernet, a cocktail (Machata) that combines reposado tequila, horchata, matcha, PX sherry and cinnamon, and a IG-worthy concoction with vampire teeth called, natch, Vampiro.
Opening downstairs this fall, Kees is a “dream bar” for Bell (the name is derived from a family name that also plays into the Dutch aspects of the city in the early 1600s). A Midtown NYC concept brought downtown, Bell describes Kees as taking the energy of mid-century bars and nightclubs like Stork Club and El Morocco, “places where you would dress to the nines and see someone like Lucille Ball.” Expect terrazzo floors, lots of brass, marble table tops and a reservation-only policy.
“It’ll be really thoughtful, well-executed, restrained, confident drinks,” Bell says. “There’s not a TikTok viral drink that’s gonna be the anchor. The drinks will be timeless and precise. It’s a good foil for upstairs.”
Bell, who’s also bringing drinks to the Waldorf Astoria, is an extremely busy guy these days — our first interview is taken outdoors because of ongoing bar construction, while the second has him trapezing around workers trying to finish the bar that’s just a few hours away from opening night. “I’m a little bit masochistic,” he admits. “Making money is not fun for me, but creating cool things is fun for me. And the experiential things, that’s the stuff that gets me out of bed. When you’ve made this thing and people love it, that’s the real win, right?”
You can check out The Spill’s Instagram for more on our visit to Mixteca.
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