A new Mexican restaurant opened in downtown State College. Here’s what they’ll serve up
A new fast-casual Mexican restaurant that prides itself on not having surcharges for extra ingredients opened Saturday in downtown State College.
El Jefe’s Taqueria, 352 E. Calder Way, is the first eatery to open in the Here State College mixed-use complex, an area borough administrators have looked to fill as more high-rise buildings pop up downtown.
“We really are an authentic Mexican taqueria. We make 40 things from scratch here in the kitchen every day,” owner John Schall said Monday. “They all come from recipes from a Mexican American chef of ours that has worked with me for 15 years. The recipes are his old family recipes that have come down for generations.”
The State College location is the fifth to open since 2015 and second in Pennsylvania. The 21,075-square-foot space is also the largest of the quintet.
The about 45-seat restaurant that contains splashes of red, yellow and green sells a plethora of Mexican street food, with beer and sangria offerings in the works. Outdoor seating is also available.
The eatery is scheduled to be open 11 a.m. to 4 a.m. daily until Aug. 1, when their hours are set to expand to 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. daily.
“We do 40% of our business when other places are closed,” Schall said. “It’s something we want to become known for.”
The restaurant has been in the works for about two years. The first rendezvous to Happy Valley came when the high-rise was “just a huge hole in the ground,” Schall said with a laugh.
He looked at five or six locations, but knew the middle ground between East College Avenue and East Beaver Avenue was where he hoped to open.
The business signed a 10-year lease for the space, followed by a pair of five-year renewal options. Schall plans to hire about 16 people to run the restaurant.
“The location model we have is to locate as close as possible to colleges and universities. Because we want to be open until 4 a.m., being out in a suburban strip mall doesn’t really cut it,” Schall said. “... We want to be a part of the communities that we locate in and really get integrated into the kinds of things that are going on in those communities.”
This story was originally published May 10, 2021 at 5:23 PM.