Mexican restaurant planned in Aztec Hotel

Owners of historic Aztec Hotel in Monrovia, Calif., plan to convert the establishment’s Brass Elephant bar into a Mexican restaurant, according to a report by the Monrovia Planning Commission.

The owners also want to offer alcoholic beverages and live music, but the commission tabled that request until the neighborhood’s concerns can be heard. According to a report in the Monrovia Patch:

“The property owner of an apartment building on Melrose Avenue that is directly north of the Aztec Hotels parking lot attended the meeting,” the report reads. “The property owner expressed concern that she did not want to see a repeat of what happened in the past when the Brass Elephant occupied the restaurant space before it changed to the Mayan Room restaurant. The Brass Elephant had evolved from a restaurant to a nightclub/bar use that created late night problems for her tenants and the neighborhood.”

The Commission pushed back the public hearing until its December meeting and directed city staff to “bring back conditions of approval to allow entertainment on a very limited basis,” according to commission’s development blog.

According to the Patch report, Jacky Chan is the owner of the Aztec. However, a previous report said the hotel was bought by a Chinese group, which has performed a lot of rehab work on the structure.

Regardless of the fate of the live-music request, the idea of a Mexican restaurant makes a lot of sense with the unique, Mayan-themed architecture of the building.

The Aztec Hotel opened in 1925 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It sits along an older Foothill Boulevard alignment of Route 66.

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