El Cantarita joins eateries offering Mexican fare in Fuquay-Varina

Somewhat new to the Fuquay-Varina community is El Cantarita Bar & Grill, a restaurant serving Mexican fare beginning at 11 a.m. daily at 155 S. Main St. in the town's downtown business district.

I had not been to downtown Fuquay-Varina in several years before stopping in on Monday, and I could see on the drive along U.S. 401 (which locally is Main Street) that the town government's new municipal building, which was under construction for my 2019 photo walk-through, was now in operation. And there was a large open field a block or two north of El Cantarita displaying a sign indicating future development is coming. 

I'm pretty sure the multi-story building in which El Cantarita is located is even newer. As one of the pictures in this post attests, the building has four stories, which is a skycraper for towns the size of Fuquay-Varina, and I don't recall there being a building that size with the possible exception of one or two banks.

El Cantarita is a quaint eatery decorated judiciously, and I mean that in a good way. This place had been recommended to us by an employee at the town’s ABC liquor store when we asked her where we could find a good margarita in town. And she was not mistaken. 

Lee Ann and I found the house margarita (see photo above) to be superb, and I think it's one of the seemingly few bars that uses an appropriate amount of the liqueur Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge or triple sec in their cocktail. I applaud El Cantarita for doing so.  

Interestingly, the menu suggests that the bar serves an even better margarita; it offers a premium margarita — for almost twice the cost — using 1880 tequila.

For the main dishes, Lee Ann chose Cantarita’s fajita quesadilla shown in the first photo below. I picked Cantarita’s enchilada with ground beef (second photo below). We both enjoyed our meals. My only qualm was that I wished they had used a cream (instead of dried) cheese topping on my enchiladas and that there might have been a red sauce included. I ended up putting some of the salsa served with the tortilla chips appetizer onto my enchiladas. 

Speaking of the tortilla chips ... I liked the salsa, but Lee Ann felt it was on the spicy side. I like spicy, so a server brought us some jalapeno chips to add to our dipped chips. Ordinarily I'm not a jalapeno fan, but I got bold and tried a light treatment of them, and although I seemed fine at the time, my stomach would tell me a few hours later that it probably was not a good idea. 

There is very modest municipal parking along the north side of the building, and there is some free street parking as well. The restaurant closes at 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and on Saturdays. Closing is 9 p.m. Sundays and 10:30 p.m. Fridays. Pickup/carryout service is available after 1:45 p.m. most days.