Sol De Mexico Bar and Grill

If you have driven the stretch of Lima Road near Washington Center Road and clocked the Cracker Barrel, you have passed Sol De Mexico Bar and Grill without necessarily knowing it. It sits right next door at 5830 Challenger Parkway, in the space that Kayson's 5th Down used to occupy. The building has a new job now: traditional Mexican food and a full bar, on the north side of Fort Wayne.

This is a sit-down Mexican restaurant, not a taqueria counter and not a fast-casual line. That distinction matters when you are deciding where to eat tonight. Sol De Mexico is built for lingering: a table, a menu you work through, a margarita in hand.

What's Actually on the Menu

The kitchen runs the traditional Mexican-American canon and runs it broad. Fajitas, burritos, chalupas, chile rellenos, chimichangas, enchiladas, tamales, tostadas, and flautas all show up on the menu. If you have a preferred order at this kind of place, it is almost certainly here.

Fajitas are the plate to watch for at a restaurant that leans into the sizzle-and-share format, and the chile relleno is the honest test of any traditional Mexican kitchen: a roasted, stuffed pepper is harder to fake than a smothered burrito. The tamales are worth a look for the same reason.

The menu also lists vegetarian and gluten-free options, which is not a given at every Mexican spot in town. If you are the person at the table who usually gets stuck with a side of rice and a shrug, you have real choices here.

The Bar Side of the Room

Sol De Mexico is a bar and grill in full, not a restaurant that happens to keep tequila behind the counter. There is a full bar with signature margaritas, and the bar area carries multiple screens for sporting events. That makes it a legitimate option for a game night that also involves dinner, which is a narrower category in this town than you might think.

So the room can flex two ways. Pull up to the bar for margaritas and whatever is on the screens, or take a table and treat it as a proper dinner out.

Room for a Crowd

Two features push Sol De Mexico past the standard weeknight-dinner use case. There is a private room that seats up to 40 people, which handles the birthday, the work send-off, or the family gathering that a regular table can't. And there is a back patio for when the Fort Wayne weather finally cooperates.

The restaurant got a local spotlight when 21Alive (WPTA) featured it in a news segment in July 2024, not long into its run in the old Kayson's space.

Who It's For

Come here when you want the full sit-down Mexican experience with a real bar attached: a table of fajitas, a round of margaritas, a game on in the background, and enough menu range that the vegetarian and the gluten-free eater at the table both find a plate. It works for a date, a family dinner, or a group booking in the private room.

Fort Wayne has a deep bench of Mexican restaurants, and it is worth knowing your options. For a different sit-down take, there is Bandidos Mexican Restaurant or Arcos Restaurante Mexicano. If you would rather chase tacos than a full bar, Taqueria Flores plays a different game entirely. But if the plan tonight is a plate of traditional Mexican and a signature margarita off Lima Road, Sol De Mexico Bar and Grill is set up for exactly that.