Carnitas Uruapan’s new Little Village location is now open

After years of searching for a flagship location in the heart of La Villita, Carnitas Uruapan has found one in a former concert venue for Mexican grupera acts. The father-and-son team of Inocencio and Marcos Carbajal have launched the next chapter in their restaurant’s 50-year history with an art deco space featuring a spacious dining room boasting a Mexican aesthetic with deeply personal touches that ownership hopes will remind visitors of home.

The Carbajals’ third location, 3801 W. 26th Street, also features something their other two restaurants lack: cocktails and beer. The new space, the former La Concordia restaurant, opened on Monday, January 27.

For Marcos Carbajal, the second-generation restaurateur whose father built the stalwart emporium for crispy golden carnitas, crunchy chicharrones, and craveable tacos dorados in Pilsen, expanding the family-owned business into Little Village feels like a full circle moment.

Anthony Arroyo/Eater Chicago

“[Little Village] feels very much like a place where I’m at home, it’s almost like stepping back in time, it feels very familiar, with street vendors, you hear Spanish everywhere, it’s just kind of a throwback vibe for us,” says Carbajal.

Little Village is widely considered the heart of the Midwest’s Mexican community and is concentrated mostly along 26th Street, home to numerous businesses that cater directly to the region’s diaspora community. While the food menu at the new location remains the same, the Little Village debuts a beverage program created by cantinero Luis “Luigi” Estrada, a bartender who’s created bar menus at notable Mexican restaurants Tzuco and Kie Gol Lanee. Estrada and Marcos Carbajal worked on draft cocktails that emphasize regional Mexican spirits like mezcal and charanda from Michoacán, using ingredients “that even an abuelita or tia can relate to,” says Estrada.

The beverages also include micheladas and a lineup of Mexican beers, including a collaboration with Mexican American-owned Casa Humilde Cerveceria, which recently relocated to suburban Forest Park.

Left, Marcos Carbajal, with his arm on the shoulder of his father Inocencio “El Güero” Carbajal, at Carnitas Uruapan’s newest location in Little Village

Anthony Arroyo/Eater Chicago

The new space is situated in a three-story 1920s-era art deco building that had previously housed a furniture store with manufacturing space on the upper levels and eventually went on to become a restaurant and bar that once served as a music venue. The building had been vacant for 15 years, with eight inches of standing water in the basement when Carbajal purchased the property in 2021.

Work has been done to improve the decaying facade and used materials throughout the space that offer visitors an homage to Mexican culture. Designer Aida Napoles of AGN Design (who, according to Carbajal, grew up around the corner from the restaurant) created a culturally resonant space. The back of the booths, for example, are made with the same textile as a rebozo — a traditional garment. Chairs and banquettes are accentuated with ostrich leather, frequently used for cowboy boots. The walls are lined with custom-cut slabs of terracotta. In honor of the community, a 40-foot sign on the exterior of the building that can be seen from blocks away now dons the words La Villita. The dining room floor has been hand-painted with a stencil pattern reminiscent of the designs found on the patios of old homes in Mexico. The dining room has seating for 150 diners, a corner patio includes seating for 50, and a room for private events. There’s also parking across the street on two lots bought by Carbajal. To bring in additional revenue, Carbajal says he is renovating the upper levels to include apartments.

Carnitas Uruapan was founded by Carbajal’s father Inocencio “El Guero” Carbajal in 1975, having immigrated to the area in 1969. Carbajal tells Eater that his dad was part of a wave of Mexicanos who hail from Michoacán — the birthplace of carnitas — responding to Chicago’s demand for folks with whole hog-butchering skills. Carbajal’s father’s recipe was based on what he learned as a kid from Carbajal’s grandfather and an uncle, who ran a carniceria in Uruapan in the 1940s and ‘50s. The original Carnitas Uruapan location opened across the street from what Carbajal says was the first Mexican grocery store. The supermarket provided this newer wave of immigrants with pantry staples like avocados and chiles, ingredients that were harder to come by at the time.

Carnitas Uruapan offered them a taste of home.

Expansion for Carbajal has been focused on areas of the city where the Mexican community has since migrated in the years since Carnitas Uruapan first opened. In 2019, the family business opened a location in Gage Park, knowing that many of the restaurant’s longtime customer base had since relocated there. One mark of success that the restaurant is serving its purpose comes when the restaurant gets visitors from Mexico.

“When people actually visit from Mexico, they’re impressed how it’s, you know, it’s a real taste of Michoacán. It’s because we have a direct line, a great direct lineage that goes back to Michoacán.

Carnitas Uruapan, 3801 W. 26th Street, open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends.

Sign up for the

newsletter

Eater Chicago

Sign up for our newsletter.

Micheladas, now available at Carnitas Uruapan in traditional flavor or tamarindo-infused

Anthony Arroyo/Eater Chicago

Carnitas Uruapan now has an alcoholic beverage menu at its new Little Village location

Anthony Arroyo/Eater Chicago

Anthony Arroyo/Eater Chicago

The inside of the new Carnitas Uruapan location in Little Village is a love letter to Mexican interior design

Anthony Arroyo/Eater Chicago

Aida Napoles of AGN Design turned to materials typical in Mexican interior design and culture to create an inviting space that reminds customers of home

Anthony Arroyo/Eater Chicago

Anthony Arroyo/Eater Chicago

Anthony Arroyo/Eater Chicago