Cantina

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This article is about the restaurant chain. For other uses, see Cantina (disambiguation).
Cantina logo.png

Cantina Tortilla Grill is a Latin-American restaurant chain founded by Guillermo Castro with the opening of a first location in the Martin Biscuit Building at Pepper Place in April 2004. The casual restaurant features "street food" such as Cuban sandwiches, tacos, molletes, and fish and steak sandwiches.

Castro opened a second location in the Cadence Place shopping center on Cahaba Valley Road in Inverness in 2007, and licensed a franchise at the Patton Creek Shopping Center in Hoover to Danny Lasseter and J. D. Hill in 2010. Both of those locations closed by the end of the decade.

In early 2010 Pavo magazine commissioned comedy troupe Vacant Manifesto to produce an online video advertisement for Cantina. The result, featuring a "Tequila Bot" that leaves his comrade on the battlefield to go to Cantina, became a brief internet sensation.

Guillermo Castro died in 2011 and the business passed to his brothers, Jorge and Alex. In 2012 they began operating a food truck, called Cantina on Wheels. A year later they closed Guillermo's other venture, Sol y Luna, and opened a franchise of the Virginia-based chain Jack Brown's Beer & Burger Joint in that location.

In 2019 the original Lakeview restaurant closed to make way for Hot and Hot Fish Club to take over the corner of the Martin Biscuit Building. Plans were announced for the restaurant to re-open in the former Wasabi Juan's space at 4120 3rd Avenue South in Avondale, but did not come to fruition. Jorge Castro opened a new Sol y Luna in the former Local Taco space at Lane Parke in February 2020.

Jorge and Aimee Domingue Castro opened a new Cantina Tortilla Grill in the former Little London Kitchen space at 162 Oxmoor Road in West Homewood.

References

  • Carlton, Bob (October 1, 2010) "Former Fire owner Danny Lasseter and partner J.D. Hill of Oak Hill Bar & Grill open new Cantina franchise in Hoover's Patton Creek shopping center." The Birmingham News
  • Swain, Sharron (July 10, 2023) "Cantina Tortilla Grill to reopen with new West Homewood location in late July." Bham Now

External link