Arroyo Seco beach coming of age: hotel, restaurant, RV park...

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - Having dinner last night at Luis' (Restaurante Las Brisas) on Playa Grande in Arroyo Seco - in the company of 14 people staying at the Hotel across the street - it occured to me that suddenly Arroyo Seco might be coming of age for tourists.

The single biggest drawback for out-of-town visitors in our few years living here has been that there is no commercial establishment for people to spend the night. So anyone interested in coming in and spending time wandering (or surfing or swimming) could only come in for day trips.

And the restaurant scene mostly consisted of small family run taco stands on the main street, which opened well after dark, long after most day-trippers were headed back to La Manzanilla or Careyes or Melaque.

View from the lower patio area of the hotel

Then the hotel - really an 11-bedroom home with a large central kitchen - came available for people to rent. It's not the Four Seasons, yet. And the owner would prefer to sell it and make it someone else's responsiblilty. But for now, Jim Monaco, owner/operator of the Monaco PV real estate company, has taken the place over for the owner and is renting out rooms.

He is also working like crazy, fixing the place up.

And there is an RV park now, too, that had guests about a week ago from the state of Washington.

Last night, the gringo population swelled as most of the rooms were taken by visitors from Barra and Melaque - a group of friends and people from as far away as the Mexican state of Michocan. And in addition to spending the afternoon and evening (and this morning) enjoying the beach scene and the small heart-shaped pool at the hotel, the entire assemblage walked across the street to Luis' restaurant, where a special meal had been prepared.

Luis and his wife Nena put on quite a spread, and most of the items we ate are available on the normal menu for the restaurant, open nearly every day.

Their son Luis and two young amigos acted as the waiters and kept all the diners happy.

Group from the hotel at Restaurante Las Brisas

Three years ago, when Adm. Fox and I bought the lot on which we now live in the winter and spring (aka, the Pink Flamingo), it was partly because we thought someday someone might want to open a restaurant or school or ? in the center of town.

Maybe that time is getting closer.

Perhaps a subsidiary of of Palapa Joe's?

Here's a brief video of from last night...