Supervisors approve liquor-license transfer for Mad Mex eatery in Millcreek

Foodie alert: An upscale Mexican restaurant is coming to Millcreek Township.

Millcreek supervisors approved a liquor-license transfer Tuesday night from the city of Erie for a new restaurant planned for the Millcreek Mall.

The restaurant is Mad Mex, a regional chain of 11 restaurants with seven in the Pittsburgh area, two in the Philadelphia area and one each in State College and Columbus, Ohio. The Mad Mex website describes the restaurant this way: "We spin an American food mashup of Mexican, Southeast Asian and Spanish."

Erie attorney Michael Agresti, representing Mad Mex before the supervisors, said the family-friendly restaurant will go into the northwest corner of the former Burlington Coat Factory, which relocated to Keystone Drive in Summit Township in September 2012.

Agresti said Primanti Bros., maker of the iconic Pittsburgh sandwich topped with french fries and coleslaw, is another restaurant proposed for the southwest corner of the former department store.

Agresti said the Mad Mex restaurant would seat 270 customers and hire 55 to 60 full- and part-time employees.

Joe Bell, spokesman for Youngstown-based Cafaro Co., which owns the mall, said there is no signed lease with Mad Mex. "But that doesn't mean they're not talking," Bell said.

Cafaro Co. has a policy of not naming potential tenants until a lease is signed, which Bell called "fairly standard in the industry."

Cary Klein, chief executive of Pittsburgh-based Big Burrito Restaurant Group, which owns the California-style Mexican restaurant chain, said the company hopes to sign a lease today with Cafaro for 6,400 square feet of the former Burlington space.

It will include a year-round outdoor patio that will be heated and covered in the cold months, he said.

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Supervisors approve liquor-license transfer for Mad Mex eatery in Millcreek