Monumental Moments Celebrated with Margs!

Growing up, whenever someone in my family achieved a milestone in our lives, whether it be a good grade on a paper, making it on the varsity team, or winning a mixed doubles tennis match, we always celebrated in our own little way.

We have this plate that we call “the blue plate”... yes, it is blue, but it says “Congratulations on your accomplishment” on it. If you achieved your milestone, you got to have the blue plate for the day. You name it, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it all was yours.

This past week, I was fortunate enough to receive my first job offer, and while I am not lucky enough to have my family and their blue plate close enough to Oxford to celebrate, we celebrated via FaceTime with a little bottle of LaMarca and a few days later, my friend Ellen and I went out to dinner to celebrate!

Little did we know that when making our dinner plans, they would just so happen to fall on National Margarita Day, so celebrating with a margarita – what we like to shorten to as “margs” – was a must!

Recently, Uno Mas, a modern Mexican taqueria & agave bar moved from their original location off South Lamar across from the old hospital to their new home on the Square in Saint Leo’s old restaurant space. After some new paint, tables, and decor coupled with the installation of a fabulous turquoise glass tiled bar, they were all set to go.

We decided to go earlier in the evening since we knew with it being National Margarita Day, it would get busy quickly. So I, always thinking I am going to need 15 minutes extra to get to my destination because there could be an accident or parking could be a nightmare, got to our 5:30 p.m. dinner around 5:10 p.m. so I just decided to go ahead and grab a table.

Thankfully I did because not only did the restaurant fill up quickly, but I also got the chance to peek and see what other people had ordered. Never having been there before, at first glance, the menu seemed a little daunting but our waitress came over quickly and helped put my overwhelmed mind at ease. She quickly pointed out a special menu for the evening highlighting three specialty margs that were only $5 as a celebration of National Margarita Day.

There were three options: the first, was called the Satsuma’s Dream Marg with Cathead bitter orange vodka, triple sec, blood orange, lime, and agave nectar. The second, the Uno Mas Marg, had Lunazul reposado tequila, triple sec, lime, orange, and agave nectar. And the third was the Magnolia Marg which included Cathead honeysuckle vodka, triple sec, lime, lemon, and agave nectar.

Ellen and I each tried the Uno Mas Marg, on the rocks, with salt and it was divine! The perfect amount of sweet and salty. We shared some homemade guacamole and I had a shredded chicken chimichanga and Ellen had a steak taco bowl.

We toasted to new adventures and talked about all of the changes that have been present in our lives in the last few weeks. Between job applications, school work, jobs, birthday parties, engagement parties, graduation applications, apartment hunting, etc. we needed a night to relax and just be present – and that is what we got!

While it took a while for our drinks to come – which is understandable because it was National Margarita Day – overall, the food was amazing, the drinks were phenomenal, the service was excellent, and the atmosphere was electric (minus the 1 a.m. room deafening music you would normally get at a club).

There were definitely a few areas that the restaurant could have improved upon and I think with time, they will work through these things however there are two side doors that they had open to let the fresh evening air in… some patrons thought that they could enter into the restaurant through these open doors and ended up bypassing the hostess stand and then had to backtrack once they realized they couldn’t just sit wherever they wanted. Similarly, some of the tables were a little too close together for it being so busy. I understand wanting to serve as many people as possible however it almost seemed like people were weaving and ducking trying to get in and out of the tables along the back wall. Finally, while their large turquoise glass tiled bar is stunning, placing it right at the door made it super narrow to walk into the restaurant and guests had to weave around chairs and patrons at the bar.

Overall, I loved my evening and will definitely be coming back again for another night out with delicious margs and even better company!