East Longmeadow Planning Board Approves Outdoor Dining at Mazatlan Mexican Restaurant

EAST LONGMEADOW – During its regular meeting on Oct. 15, the East Longmeadow Planning Board unanimously approved an amendment to a special permit to allow Mazatlan Mexican Restaurant to utilize outdoor dining each year from April through October.

The restaurant, which opened at 621 North Main St. in 2022, used to be called “Torito” until it had to change its name due to a complaint from a California restaurant that the East Longmeadow restaurant was using its name. The City Council officially approved the name change to “Mazatlan” during a meeting on October 8.

According to Jeff Oppenheim, a lawyer representing Mazatlán, the restaurant was “forced” to change its name due to this complaint.

“(That) wasn’t necessarily something we were excited about doing,” he said.

Despite being forced to make this change, Mazaltan was now able to utilize two existing outdoor decks to serve food and alcoholic beverages at eight separate tables for a maximum of 32 people during the aforementioned months, thanks to approval from the Planning Board . .

According to Oppenheim, the use of these decks was essential during the coronavirus pandemic years.

“I think it’s one of those situations where it’s almost ideal from the Planning Board’s perspective because the use happened,” Oppenheim said. “We are not aware of any problems with use.”

The council’s approval for outdoor dining at the restaurant comes with small conditions, including that outdoor dining will be permitted seven days a week until 10 p.m. Currently, Mazatlan’s opening hours are 11am to 10pm, Sunday to Thursday, and 11am to midnight. on Friday and Saturday.

According to Oppenheim, food and drink preparations will take place inside and will be brought outside by waiters dedicated specifically to the outdoor decks.

“In my experience, and I represent a lot of restaurants, post-pandemic, you need to be able to serve food outdoors,” Oppenheim said. “There are people who are still worried about exposure to COVID and are not eating indoors. But even those people who are willing to eat indoors, I think it’s generally much better to be outside. The weather is good and it’s important from a competitive point of view to be able to do this.”

Mazatlan offers a variety of dishes, including chicken, seafood, beef or pork, as well as half a dozen vegetarian options. There are also a plethora of tacos, burritos, enchiladas and chimichangas for you to choose from on their menu.

According to the Planning Board, there have been no noise complaints or other issues at the restaurant in the past, and the restaurant’s parking will not change due to the special permit change.

Now that outdoor dining has been approved by the board, the restaurant’s owners will go to City Council to have the restaurant’s liquor license changed.