A new restaurant and bar now open in Greenville’s West End brings a little bit of South Beach to South Main Street.
Mojitos Bar and Lounge, which opened in March at 816 S. Main St., is run by Edurne Zabala—better known to family and clientele simply as Mimi—and members of her family and close friends, all of whom moved to the area from Miami within the last two years.
The restaurant serves up Cuban cuisine, in addition to its namesake beverage, and has a distinct South Beach vibe inside, with its white exposed-brick walls, black tiled floors and leather couches along the sides.
For Zabala, Mojitos represents the next chapter in a story that began with a smaller Cuban café, La Cubanita, on East Broad Street, which she opened in May of 2008. Zabala said even in her first month with La Cubanita, she knew she eventually wanted to make a move to Main Street, and do a little more with a little more space. She relied on her faith in God to take her down that path.
“(The customers) would ask me, when are we going to have mojitos, and when are we going to dance salsa?” Zabala said.
At La Cubanita, she said, the space was too small to accommodate dancing, and she did not have a liquor license.
“But it always stayed in the back of my mind, and I was always looking for another location and hoping that everything would go well,” Zabala said.
Now she has a new space, a new name and more help. After countless efforts trying to recruit her nephew—a restaurant industry veteran—to come to Greenville and help with the endeavor, Lazaro Montoto and his family bit the bullet and made the move.
“I have two little girls and didn’t want to raise them on South Beach,” Montoto said. “My wife and I, we like to party a little bit, so we wondered, how can we go to Greenville, and still satisfy our craving to dance and enjoy the nightlife a little bit?”
It would appear they found their answer by bringing the party with them and joining Montoto’s aunt in opening Mojitos. As an added bonus, his wife’s best friend and her husband decided to get in on the business, too, and moved to Greenville around the same time.
“A South Beach feel is what we wanted, to bring a lounge-y feel. People come in, they have a glass of wine or a mojito, they kind of relax and enjoy the background music,” Montoto said. “Later towards the evening, the lights dim down and the music comes up, and we hope people will get up and dance.”
Although the restaurant has been open since March 17, a grand opening is planned for April 17. Zabala said she looks forward to getting more exposure as baseball season fires up, and visitors to Fluor Field walk past, although the proximity of the stadium was more of a bonus than a determining factor for the new location.
And she has a message for the loyal following she developed at La Cubanita:
“I’m back, we’re open, and we’re ready for partying.”
