Cascabel Brings Mexican Street-Style Barbecue to a West-End Natural Wine Bar
Cascabel has set up shop inside Paradise Grapevine, the west-end wine bar best known for its natural wine list rather than anything coming out of a kitchen — and the pairing works better than it has any right to. The Mexican barbecue pop-up is running on Paradise Grapevine’s Geary Avenue patio through the end of September, and on weekends the strip now smells less like a wine bar and more like a cottage-country campfire.
Cascabel’s roots trace back to a pandemic side project. Matthew Bod, a brewer at Great Lakes Brewery by day, spent his downtime during lockdown teaching himself Southern-style barbecue technique from scratch, starting with a small charcoal box bolted onto a gas grill and working through what he calls “beginner barbecue” — whole chickens, beef ribs, pork shoulder. Bod had always been drawn to Mexican food too, and the two interests eventually merged when he crossed paths with Mariel González, who was running her own pantry-goods business, Catrina’s Kitchen, and made her own chili powder. What started as Bod outsourcing spice production turned into a full creative partnership once the pair realized how well their sensibilities lined up — bold flavour, wood and charcoal cooking, and a shared taste for Mexican street food traditions. Cascabel BBQ was born from that partnership, with González later handing her role to Mexican-born cook Veronica Cano, formerly of Maizal.
The concept found its first real home last year on the back patio of Reposado, the Ossington tequila bar, running Friday through Sunday and turning out dishes like slow-smoked beef cheek tacos, chorizo con piña finished with fire-charred pineapple, and camarones zarandeados — butterflied black tiger shrimp grilled directly over hot coals using a traditional method from González’s home state of Nayarit, served with guacamole and a serrano-lime aguachile. The name itself nods to both a type of Mexican chili pepper and a rattlesnake, a fitting symbol for a project built on heat and a bit of danger.
This year, Cascabel has moved its residency north to Paradise Grapevine, trading Reposado’s tequila-forward bar program for a natural wine list that ends up pairing surprisingly well with smoke and char. For Paradise Grapevine’s regulars, it means access to a genuinely distinct food offering they wouldn’t otherwise find at a wine bar; for Cascabel, it’s a chance to put its cooking in front of an entirely new audience that might not have sought it out on its own.
It’s a smart bit of cross-promotion for a west-end dining scene that’s increasingly leaning into pop-up collaborations and seasonal residencies — proof that two very different food and drink identities can share a roof for a season and come out ahead for it.
Cascabel is running at Paradise Grapevine, 218 Geary Ave