Rosa Mexicano is set to open its fourth New York City restaurant this September, landing right in the heart of the Theater District at 120 West 45th Street at Broadway. The nearly 40-year-old Mexican restaurant group is pairing its classic full-service dining room with a brand-new fast-casual spinoff, The Pink Door by Rosa Mexicano, marking the company's first attempt at a quick-service taqueria concept.
The new restaurant will span 2,800 square feet with 107 seats in the main dining room, plus another 57 seats dedicated to The Pink Door counter, according to the New York Post. It will be Rosa Mexicano's 10th location overall. "It's a natural next chapter for us," Rich Zoob told the outlet.
The Pink Door Debuts as Rosa Mexicano's First Fast-Casual Spinoff
The Pink Door will offer to-go tacos alongside frozen margaritas and other cocktails, giving Midtown office workers and Broadway theatergoers a quicker option than the full sit-down menu next door. It's the first time Rosa Mexicano has tried a fast-casual taqueria format anywhere in its lineup.
An 18-Foot Nod to the Original Cliff-Diver Wall
The new dining room will retain Rosa Mexicano's signature divers wall, a two-story, iridescent blue-tile mural more than 6 feet tall and 18 feet wide, designed by architect David Rockwell and inspired by the cliff divers of Acapulco. The design is a direct descendant of the roughly 30-foot version Rockwell built for the restaurant's former Lincoln Center location, according to Eventective.
A Recipe and a Name Both Dating Back to 1984
Rosa Mexicano traces its roots to 1984, when Cuban-born chef Josefina Howard opened the original location on Manhattan's Upper East Side after spending more than two decades living in Mexico. Howard was widely credited with introducing high-end, authentic regional Mexican cuisine to New York City, per elrestaurante.com. She died in 2005 at age 74, but her original recipes still anchor the menu.
The restaurant's name itself is a tribute to Howard's travels: "Rosa Mexicano" translates to "Mexican pink," a color she adopted for the brand after coming across a Mexican village painted entirely in that shade, according to Chef Tec.
Tableside Guacamole, Fajitas, and a 100-Bottle Agave Bar
Among the dishes carrying over to Times Square is the tableside guacamole, still hand-mashed in volcanic stone molcajetes without any lime juice, following Howard's original recipe. The full menu will also include fajitas, enchiladas and tacos, rounding out the same repertoire found at Rosa Mexicano's other Manhattan dining rooms.
The bar will lean heavily into agave, stocking more than 100 varieties of tequila and mezcal alongside the chain's long-running frozen pomegranate margarita, per Rosa Mexicano. Expect tequila and mezcal cocktails on both sides of the restaurant, including agave-forward drinks at The Pink Door's counter.
Joining Three Sister Restaurants Across Manhattan
The Times Square location joins existing Rosa Mexicano restaurants in Union Square and Midtown East on Second Avenue. Its Lincoln Center outpost relocated years ago into the mezzanine of The Empire Hotel at 44 West 63rd Street, after operating around the corner for 25 years, according to The Empire Hotel.
A Tower With Its Own Show-Business Past
The new restaurant will occupy space inside Tower 45, a 40-story, 458,446-square-foot Class A office building built in 1989. Kamber Management Company, which acquired the tower in 2015 for $365 million, has poured millions into capital improvements and atrium renovations since then, per Kamber Management.
Before Tower 45 rose on the site, the block was home to the 15-story Hotel Knickerbocker, built in 1925 with 400 rooms and ground-floor commercial space near Times Square. The hotel once housed the famous Peppermint Lounge before closing in 1974 and being demolished in 1985, according to Geographic Guide.
Betting on Times Square's Quarter-Million Daily Passersby
Times Square draws an average of 280,000 to 360,000 pedestrians a day, with peak traffic exceeding 400,000, according to Backroad Planet. That volume makes the corridor one of the most heavily trafficked dining and retail markets in the country.
All that foot traffic adds up: Times Square accounts for roughly $4.8 billion in annual retail, dining and entertainment sales, or about 22 cents of every dollar tourists spend in New York City, per Wikipedia. Rosa Mexicano's newest location, and its first fast-casual bet, is set to open right in the middle of it.
