Nearly a year after it broke ground, a new building on Lexington’s Main Street has its promised restaurant tenant. 

Colliers South Carolina announced that it represented Barrio Tacos + Tequila + Whiskey  in leasing the nearly 2,900-square-foot restaurant space in the Icehouse on Main building at 105 W Main St.

“We are excited for our clients, Rich and Tina Kotlarek, to get their first Barrio Tacos location in South Carolina up and running,” Colliers’ John Gressette is quoted. “This has been a lifelong dream for the Kotlareks, who have the Barrio franchise rights for central South Carolina. We are honored to be part of their journey.”

The Lexington location is the first Barrio to be announced in the state. The chain currently has 17 locations in six states, according to its website.

The release does not specify a timeline for the restaurant's opening.

Per the website, the restaurant’s menu features such twists on Mexican cuisine as tacos with hard and soft shells, a La Tierra bowl with Coca-Cola-marinated steak, and Nashville-hot mac and cheese.

“Barrio Tacos + Tequila + Whiskey has a casual atmosphere with a unique energy that is created from the combination of the staff, décor and music,” the Colliers release states. “Barrio is known for having a vast selection of tequila, whisky, beer and custom-designed tacos.”

The coming of a restaurant in the building next door to Alodia's Cucina Italiana was revealed when work started on the Icehouse on Main building in March 2021. 

The private development is the final element of the Town of Lexington’s Icehouse Project, which was conceived as part of the Vision Plan Lexington’s Town Council passed in 2012 and began when ground was broken on the adjoining Icehouse Amphitheater in 2015. The amphitheater opened in 2016, with the adjoining pavilion constructed between 2020 and 2021. 

The other building in the Icehouse Project at the corner of Main and Church houses Alodia’s.

The 100 blocks of East and West Main Street are mostly a bastion of locally owned restaurants, with the only other national chain being Craft Axe Throwing across Church Street from the Icehouse complex.

It’s the second business to be announced in relatively short order for the intersection of Church and Main, as Forest Acres wine bar Moltó Vino revealed in December that it would open its second location across the street from Icehouse on main, within the property that previously set to be the home of the Navy Yard on Main biergarten, which canceled its plans to open after winning a legal challenge to its beer and wine license brought by the neighboring St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church.

Lexington Mayor Steve MacDougall told the Chronicle that bringing such increased activity to downtown Lexington was always the idea with the Icehouse Project. For him, seeing a restaurant that brings a new aspect to downtown and one that no other part of the Columbia area has is further proof that the idea is paying off.

“We took a gamble to spend public funds in an area,” he said, “but we knew and we have done some research and have the history on it — when you do that, you will get a return.”