Escondite

Escondite has built its reputation on doing Mexican comfort food at downtown scale—loud, fast-moving, and designed for groups who plan to order widely. Opened in 2015 on Union Street, it pairs a compact taco list with shareable plates that borrow freely from street food and bar classics, from ceviche and nacho-adjacent mashups to wings, ribs, and queso-forward crowd-pleasers. The room leans maximalist, the playlists are energetic, and tequila does a lot of the heavy lifting on the drink side of things via cocktails and flights. They've now grown to include multiple locations now across the city, testament to how good it is for casual lunches, pre-show dinners, and nights that benefit from a little chaos and a lot of lime.