Carlitos Tequileria opened its second restaurant on August 31, 2026, at 185 River Road in North Arlington, New Jersey, a 180-seat, tequila and mezcal focused dining room from the team behind Carlitos Barbecue Taqueria.
The North Arlington restaurant follows the brand's first Tequileria, which opened at the Palisades Center mall in West Nyack, New York, in January 2025. According to NJBIZ, the New Jersey trade outlet, North Arlington marks the group's first full-service restaurant in the state, distinct from the fast-casual Carlitos Barbecue Taqueria locations it already operates in New Jersey.
What's inside the North Arlington restaurant
The restaurant seats roughly 180 guests and was designed by architect Salvador Juarez around a modern hacienda aesthetic, with private dining rooms, a large bar and lounge, and artwork by Mexican street artist La Piztola, according to Boozy Burbs, the Bergen County dining outlet that has tracked the project since it was first announced. A rear patio overlooks the Passaic River and holds space for roughly three dozen additional guests. The restaurant held a soft opening on August 20 before its official debut eleven days later. It currently operates Wednesday through Sunday, with later hours on Friday and Saturday, and the team has said it plans to shift the room into a livelier late-night mode on select nights, adding bottle service and live music after the dinner rush.
The bar program and menu
The bar is built around tequila and mezcal, pouring artisanal selections alongside classic and flavored margaritas, wine and beer, per Boozy Burbs. The restaurant also carries Chelitas, a Mexican-style lager brewed exclusively for the Carlitos brand in collaboration with Hoboken Brewing Co. On the food side, tacos and quesatacos made with hand-pressed nixtamal tortillas anchor the menu, filled with oak-smoked brisket, birria, crispy fish, carne asada, churrasco, pulled pork and shrimp al carbon. Shareable starters include guacamole, esquites, smoked wings and a five-salsa tasting.
From a Jersey City food truck to two tequilerias
Carlos Castillo founded Carlitos as a barbecue taco food trailer in Jersey City in the summer of 2017, working with his wife, Sabrina Castillo, along with Fernando Campo and Martin Moliné. The concept, which fused smoked Texas-style barbecue with hand-pressed nixtamal tortillas, grew into brick-and-mortar Carlitos Barbecue Taqueria locations at Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, Newark Liberty International Airport, Jersey City and the World Trade Center in Manhattan, according to NJBIZ. The full-service Tequileria concept, built around an elevated dining room and an agave-forward bar, debuted at Palisades Center in West Nyack in January 2025 before the group brought it to North Arlington this summer.
North Jersey's crowded field of tequila-focused restaurants
Carlitos Tequileria opens into a regional market already stacked with agave-driven concepts. Mexcal Tequila Bar, which restaurateur Ariel Espejo's Bent Hospitality opened in downtown Englewood in 2024, pours dozens of tequila and mezcal brands alongside Mexican fare and weekend DJ sets, according to Daily Voice. In Cliffside Park, Rojo Tequileria and Mexican Grill is preparing to open in the space vacated by Viva Margarita, Boozy Burbs has reported. Metuchen's Meximodo, meanwhile, held the Guinness World Record for the largest commercially available agave spirits selection at a bar or restaurant, with an adjudicator counting 1,033 tequilas, mezcals and other agave bottles in 2024, NJBIZ reported at the time. M Cantina in Dearborn, Michigan, surpassed that mark in June 2025 with 1,825 verified bottles, according to the Detroit News. Meximodo has since added a Jersey City location, with additional restaurants planned for Marlboro and Parsippany.
What this means
This is a real estate and hospitality story more than a tequila one: what opened is a restaurant with an agave-heavy bar list, not a new bottling or producer disclosure. None of the specific tequilas or mezcals Carlitos Tequileria, Mexcal or Rojo intend to pour have been named publicly, so there is nothing here for this publication's bottle database to weigh in on yet.