Yahoo Movies Mayahuel owner to open Sacramento ceviche restaurant as part of upscale Mexican market
People ask Ernesto Delgado why he’s opening one restaurant across the street from another. Because, he tells them, he wants people to visit a historic central park named for a Mexican American hero.
Delgado’s new cevicheria and oyster bar, Octopus, will open later this year across from downtown Sacramento’s Cesar Chavez Plaza at 980 9th St., Suite 165.
The “exhibition of Latino culture,” as Delgado called it, will focus on seafood from Baja California and Peru, with slight Asian influences. It’ll neighbor La Cosecha, Delgado’s Mexican restaurant in the park.
“As a city, as a community, we all avoid this park. And it’s obvious: I don’t,” Delgado said with a laugh. “(It) is the goal to give people a reason to come to this plaza, to this square.”
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Octopus is a semi-finalist for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership’s Calling All Dreamers contest, which gives one local entrepreneur the financial and back-end support to open a downtown business each year.
But Delgado, who also owns Mayahuel in downtown Sacramento, Sal’s Tacos in West Sacramento and Mesa Mercado in Carmichael’s Milagro Centre, is committed to opening Octopus even if it doesn’t win that competition.
He’s applied for a California Alcoholic Beverage Control license, and announced the concept Thursday morning at a monthly roundtable he hosts for downtown and Latino leaders at La Cosecha.
Octopus is part of his larger vision for the north wing of Park Tower’s ground floor: a concept called Mercado Urbano, where the cevicheria will share space with a grocery store, tequila-focused bottle shop and cafe called Bodega Market. They’ll replace La Bonne Soupe and a Starbucks, both of which closed during the pandemic.
“If you go to any mercado in Latin America, there’s always this huge display of fresh seafood offerings,” Delgado said. “Mercado Urbano is going to be a place where you can get coffee, breakfast, lunch ... you can go across the street not to a 7-Eleven, but to something that represents the Americas.”
Octopus will replace the old Starbucks, which doesn’t have a range hood, in a 1,200-square foot space. While it’ll offer salads and soups in addition to raw oysters and ceviche cured in lime juice, all cooking will have to take place without traditional gas grills or stoves.
La Bonne Soupe was about 2,000 square feet. Delgado plans to eventually knock down a wall so that the cevicheria and bottle shop flow together, similar to what he’s done at Mayahuel.
