Now Open: Cafe Chiwas, a Coffee Shop From the Tacos Chiwas Team

There will be Mexican coffee.

January 29, 2018

Image: Tacos Chiwas and Cafe Chiwas owners Armando Hernandez and Nadia Holguin.

Tacos Chiwas and Cafe Chiwas owners Armando Hernandez and Nadia Holguin. Shelby Moore

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The owners of Tacos Chiwas, the stellar Chihuahua-style Mexican eatery just west of State Route 51 on McDowell Road, have just opened a cafe: Cafe Chiwas.

Armando Hernandez and Nadia Holguin's Cafe Chiwas is next door to Tacos Chiwas. Previously, the two had been using the cafe's building to produce tortillas made from local flour. (The tortilla operation will move to the back of the room.)

Cafe Chiwas has flair your typical cafe doesn't.

Coffee drinkers will find a standard lineup of drinks: latte, mocha, cappuccino, macchiato, as well as standard coffee. Cafe Chiwas is also pouring Mexican coffee-based beverages, like cafe de olla, made made from black coffee, piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar), cinnamon stick, and orange peel.

Cafe Chiwas also serves pastries and small Mexican dishes. These offerings include strawberries and cream, a Mexican fruit cocktail, and a "pico de gallo" that features fruit instead of tomatoes (flavored with lime juice and chile powder). Esquites are on the menu — street corn in a cup.

The cafe is currently in something of a soft opening. Holguin says that the now-limited hours will expand, and that she and Hernandez plan to keep building the smoothies and cakes.

Cafe Chiwas. 1921 East McDowell Road.
Tuesday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; closed Monday.

Chris Malloy, former food editor and food critic at Phoenix New Times, has written for various local and national outlets. He has scrubbed pots in a restaurant kitchen, earned graduate credit for a class about cheese, harvested garlic in Le Marche, and rolled pastas like cappellacci stuffed with chicken liver. He writes stories on the food world's margins.

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