Chocolate-Themed Puerto Rican Restaurant Chocobar Cortés Is Launching an NYC Outpost

A nearly decade-old San Juan dining destination is expanding to New York. The New York Times reports that Chocobar Cortés, a mainstay in Old San Juan known for its liberal use of chocolate in just about every item on the menu — including salads topped with chocolate vinaigrette and grilled cheese sandwiches spread with chocolate butter — is opening up a satellite location in Mott Haven on Friday. This outpost, dubbed Chocobar Cortés NYC, will be run by chef Maria Martínez and offers a similar chocolate-soaked menu, including chalupitas de mofongo with chocolate guacamole and burgers squirted with chocolate ketchup.

Chocobar’s creative director Carlos Cortés tells the Times that the family-owned company chose Mott Haven for the expansion because of its large concentration of Puerto Rican and Dominican residents, and the recent spate of new development taking shape in the neighborhood. The Cortés family — which also runs company operations in the Dominican Republic — has distributed chocolate to various bodegas and grocery stores across 20 states, but this restaurant marks the first dining expansion outside of Puerto Rico.

Bourke Street Bakery is expanding — again

A few weeks after Aussie import Bourke Street Bakery opened its second NYC location in Chelsea, its third outpost is now popping up. The bakery posted on Instagram that the company is opening another NYC location on the Upper West Side, at 313 Amsterdam Avenue, near West 75th Street. A representative for Bourke Street confirmed to Eater that the UWS location opened on Tuesday; and there are “a couple” more bakeries in the works for next year, including one at Grand Central.

International Bar owner Molly Fitch dies

Molly Fitch, the owner of East Village icon International Bar, has died. “We lost the most valuable, most authentic, most mythical creature in our lives last night,” a message posted to International Bar’s Instagram account on Monday reads. According to the New York Post, the beloved bar owner, who was 51, was a welcoming neighborhood fixture known for “embodying the good times and grit of the old-school institutions she ran.” The Post did not state the cause of death.

A 40-year-old Manhattan meat market heads to Bay Ridge

Milano Market, an Italian staple on the Upper East Side for the past 40 years, is bringing its deli meats, sandwiches, soups, and salads to Bay Ridge. Brooklyn Paper reports that the family-owned company has opened a new south Brooklyn location at 7801 Third Avenue, at 78th Street. The market is open seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.