Featured in Vallarta Lifestyles Magazine, Spring/Summer 2006 issue.

By day, Tequila’s Café on the Malecon offers a panoramic view of Banderas Bay, complete with the spectacle of humpback whales cavorting in the crystalline waters during the winter months. By night, patrons can enjoy some of the best mariachi music around, ideally while dining on the restaurant’s romantic wraparound balcony perched one story above the street action, just opposite the seahorse sculpture. Three times nightly (except Mondays), between 8 and 10:30 pm, a six-member mariachi group performs a lively 30-minute set of popular Mexican tunes, with the help of violins, trumpets, and guitars. Just a block north, at La Chata Restaurant, is another accomplished troupe of mariachi musicians, many of them brothers, who have been playing at the eatery with their father for the past 11 years.

Celebrating the joys, struggles and triumphs of the Mexican people, mariachi music is not only uplifting entertainment, but also an experience in this country’s culture, history and showmanship. Dressed in traditional traje de charro (horseman attire), the Mariachi Vallarta 2000 and Mariachi Nuevo Imperial are proof positive that some of the best things in life are, indeed, free — thanks to Tequila’s and La Chata, which provide this fine complimentary music for their guests. Viva mariachi!