It’s been almost 13 years since rooftop restaurant and bar El Techo on Mission Street between 21st and 22nd began slinging empanadas and tacos. But fans will need to suck down their final pitchers of margaritas, because on May 4 (just before Cinco de Mayo, mind you), El Techo will close. A yet-to-be-named Cuban concept is slated to open in its place in June.
This is not a change of hands but a change of theme. Adriano Paganini is CEO of Back of the House, the restaurant group behind El Techo; the Argentinian place below it, Lolinda; and a long roster of popular spots in San Francisco, including Beretta, Super Duper Burgers, and Wildseed. He never wanted the rooftop happy-hour destination to be a Mexican spot, he says. “It feels a little tired now. Or maybe I’m a little tired of it. And I’ve been wanting to do a Cuban bar for years.”
Paganini, who is Italian-born, admits he has never been to Cuba. But he has a soft spot for the county’s music and, like so many, has romanticized its glamorous past, a slideshow of cigars, rum cocktails, fedoras, Spanish colonial architecture, and faded patina. “I know things are hard there today,” he says. “My image of it is not necessarily the way it is now, but maybe the way it used to be.”…