06-05-2025
Hungry customers fill Erie Mexican restaurants for Cinco de Mayo
Some local restaurants saw a boom in business Monday night as the Erie community celebrated Cinco de Mayo.
Cinco de Mayo is a time for people to sit back with a taco and a margarita, but the holiday is also a huge day for Mexican restaurants.
Reporter Tyler Gallagher live at El Amigo in celebration of Cinco de Mayo
The fifth of May is known as Cinco de Mayo in the U.S. and Mexico, and Monday evening, people lined up outside of El Amigo on State Street to celebrate the holiday with an authentic Mexican meal.
'We celebrate every Cinco de Mayo, and it's a popular fiesta; we call it a fiesta like a party. People come and drink at the restaurant, have some nice food, have some nice drinks, and everything. So, I think this is the bigger, like, busy day in the year,' said Alex Villatoro, a manager at El Amigo.
Villatoro said the staff at El Amigo has been preparing for Cinco de Mayo for three weeks, stocking up on food and drinks before the holiday rush.
And sure enough, the holiday rush did come, with customers filling every seat in the restaurant at dinner time and even forming a line outside waiting to get their share of the Mexican holiday.
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You could just hear the chatter around me, this place is packed right now, almost every single table is occupied, but El Amigo isn't the only place to celebrate Cinco de Mayo around the Erie community.'
'We're so busy, so I'm very grateful right now. If you can see, there's a lot of cars and we've had a full house since like 11 a.m. I thought it was going to be slow because it's monday. I thought everybody would be at work or something, but it's been so busy, I don't know what happened today,' said Leonardo Leal, a manager at El Canelo.
Customers also lined up for a table at El Canelo on West 12th Street, waiting for a chance to cheers a margarita with some friends.
And Leal said they don't take busy days like this for granted.
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'Like five months ago, I thought it was going to be the end of El Canelo because we were slow and no clients, probably like 10 tables in the whole day, but yeah, we're getting better,' he went on to say.
Leal said El Canelo has different promotions every day of the week for customers looking to celebrate Cinco de Mayo anytime.
Both restaurant managers said the holiday was an overall success for their businesses.
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