When El Colibrí opened its doors Wednesday, a piñata — not a ribbon — marked the occasion.
Egged on by co-owner Jeimy Ibarra, Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor took the first swings, spilling Mexican candy and El Colibrí stickers on the ground — traditionally a good omen.
After years of operating as a pop-up and through a ghost kitchen space, the Mexican restaurant and catering business is expanding with its first brick-and-mortar location. The family business is co-owned by Ibarra, her mother, Rocio Ruiz, and her husband, Pedro Ibarra, both of whom she credited for much of the behind-the-scenes work.
El Colibrí’s new location at 5331 Penn Ave. in Pittsburgh’s Garfield neighborhood puts it in the street’s bustling arts and commercial district.
“We’re so excited to be in the core of all this transformation happening,” Ibarra said.
On Wednesday, guests — including neighboring business owners — lined up beside a colorful balloon arch and freshly planted flowers. The line stretched out the door for a buffet featuring El Colibrí’s signature dishes. Specializing in authentic Mexican street food, the restaurant served taquitos (3 for $9.50), sopes (shredded meat in a fried corn masa “bowl,” 2 for $8.60), esquites (Mexican street corn, $7.60) and pineapple agua fresca.
Other favorites include tacos ($6.25 each) filled with meat or a vegetarian protein — including an oyster mushroom birria, fresh cactus, or soy chorizo — and gorditas ($11.45).
From its inception, El Colibrí has sought to honor Mexican culture and tradition.
The business traces its roots to July 2022, when Pedro Ibarra encouraged his mother-in-law, Rocio Ruiz, to sell food alongside his artwork at a Bloomfield First Friday event. When they got a positive response, the family expanded with a booth at the Bloomfield Saturday Market — selling birria tacos with slow-cooked beef — where customers welcomed them as a regular fixture.
Jeimy Ibarra was heartened to see Pittsburghers embrace Latino food. Growing up in the region in the early 2000s, after her mother moved to take a job at UPMC Children’s Hospital, “There was nothing,” she said. The family traveled to Cleveland to stock up at Mexican grocery stores.
“It wasn’t until Las Palmas came in that we really saw growth,” Ibarra said.
The first Las Palmas Supermercado, butcher shop and taco stand opened in Brookline in 2009.
“That just goes to show that providing for basic needs brings people in.”
The Ibarras and Ruiz christened their business El Colibrí, meaning hummingbird in Spanish, “because we wanted something that represented growth, belonging and beauty,” Ibarra said.
To stretch farmers market sales year-round, they next set up shop at The Mill Food Co. in Oakland. The commercial kitchen space functions as a “ghost kitchen” that allows food from multiple vendors to fulfill orders without a storefront.
But demand, Jeimy Ibarra said, was always for a traditional restaurant where El Colibrí could connect with customers face-to-face.
“We thought that the ghost kitchen was a way to bridge the gap between the winter season, which it was in a way,” she reflected. “But you’re behind a closed door, so it got very lonely on both ends.”
Now on Penn Avenue, El Colibrí can make a permanent return to Pittsburgh’s Unblurred: First Friday art crawls, where they once held pop-ups. The restaurant will also be at Pittsburgh VegFest in August.
“Connecting through food has been the number-one thing that we’ve done, and we will do that even more now with a brick-and-mortar,” Ibarra said. “This also represents a place that we (can) call home.”