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Candler Park cafe Gato expands its weekly Yucatán dinner series, “Gato Nights”, to include Thursdays, and now offers beer, wine, and cocktails on the menu, beginning this weekend. The breakfast and lunch cafe was previously BYOB and only offered dinner Friday through Sunday.
Nicolas Stinson, owner of the decade-old restaurant on the corner of McClendon Avenue and Clifton Road, tells Eater Atlanta, “After many years of trepidation regarding the Kafkaesque labyrinth that is acquiring a liquor license today, Gato is now pouring!”
The brand new booze list at Gato includes a “curated” list of low-production, biodynamic wines from throughout North, Central, and South America, beer, and a small selection of mezcal, sotol, tequila, the agave-based raicilla, and Colombia’s national spirit, the anise-flavored liqueur, aguardiente. Octopus Bar bartender and Up or Down cocktail pop-up founder Tim Faulkner created the cocktails for the cafe.
To celebrate the acquisition of the liquor license and expanding dinner to four nights a week, Gato plans to offer half-priced bottles of wine on Thursday evenings for the foreseeable future.
The cafe is known for its Southwestern-influenced breakfast and lunch. In recent years, Stinson opened up Gato’s tiny kitchen to moonlighting chefs as a restaurant incubator on weekend evenings. Past Gato pop-ups included Parnass Lim Savang of Talat Market, Jarrett Stieber of Eat Me Speak Me, New York’s Québeco-American diner M. Wells, and Stinson and chef Allen Suh’s popular Gato Arigato series. Savang and Stieber open their first restaurants in the Summerhill neighborhood later this year.
Stinson’s latest evening endeavor sees the chef exploring the deep, regional food roots of Mexico, such as southern Mexico and the Yucatán.
New Gato Nights hours: Thursday - Sunday, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
