Garibaldi Mexican Bistro Reopens After Negotiating with City of Englewood

Jesus Cruz, the owner of Garibaldi Mexican Bistro on South Broadway Street in Englewood, is ecstatic. "I have some good news," he says, raising his voice above the kitchen clatter in the background.

The popular restaurant, which is attached to a gas station and convenience store and won Westword's "Best Restaurant With a View of a Car Wash" in 2017, suddenly closed the week of its tenth anniversary: The City of Englewood seized the property for nonpayment of taxes in early June.

The family-owned eatery had worked out payment for state taxes, but Englewood was asking for payment that Cruz and his wife couldn't meet. Now, he says, "We talked to the city and they worked with us on lowering the payment that we owed."

The payment agreement was signed on Wednesday, June 18, but with the Juneteenth holiday things came to a standstill. According to Cruz, he got the keys to the place back this morning, and started rounding up the supplies necessary to reopen. "We went to Restaurant Depot instead of having our regular guys deliver it all, and we're getting everything ready. Our goal is to start selling again by two o'clock today," he says.

That's give or take, he acknowledges.
The noise in the background is the restaurant being prepped. "We're cleaning up. Unfortunately, we did have a lot of waste," he says. With Garibaldi's closed for over two weeks, "everything went bad."

Soon the clatter of cleanup will segue into cooking as he readies for the reopening; he's already marinating meats and baking bread.

Garibaldi's had launched a GoFundMe campaign to try to raise the $80,000 in back taxes and penalties for Englewood; it collected a little over $2,000. "So our GoFundMe didn't go as great as we wanted. I understand," he admits. "What we were asking for was a lot of money, and it was also for something that, you know, was our responsibility, our taxes. A lot of people were saying, 'That's on you guys, you could have not done that,' and that was our fault, or my fault, mainly."

He adds: "I'm grateful to the people who did donate, and for the other people who even just talked about it or shared it. I'm grateful for them, grateful for our community and our customers."

The best restaurant with a view of a car wash has cleaned up its act.

Garibaldi Mexican Bistro is at 3298 South Broadway Street, Englewood, and will be open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday; find more information at garibaldimexican.com.