The Licensing Board is pressing for Chili's to find a new owner for the vacant space as it is tying up an alcohol license.

Wander Berkshires was approved for an entertainment license. It will host sober evening events in expanded space adjacent its cafe.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A longtime North Street restaurant will change its name, its branding and its menu.

On Monday, the Licensing Board approved the name change of Pancho's Mexican Restaurant to Iztac. The eatery will still operate under Columnna LLC.  

Attorney Loretta Mach explained that owner Gabriel Columna is rebranding, including renovations to the restaurant and some new offerings.

Columna said he would like everything fresh, "and I want to make a little different food, all different." 

He purchased the business in 2022.

The board also approved an entertainment license for Wander Berkshires, a cafe and event space on Depot Street that has been open since November and celebrated with a ribbon cutting last week. It is a queer and transgender-founded, recovery-focused space.

"We are a cafe by day and then in the evenings, we're looking to have just some community events. We did a sober dance party that I got a one-day entertainment license for, we're going to do book readings, book club, nothing wild," founder Jay Santangelo said, adding that it is a sober space that does not serve alcohol.

The cafe will soon host a community darkroom with help from MassDevelopment funds. Wander is a part of the Transformative Development Initiative's Creative Catalyst Cohort that received $125,000 for a Downtown Pittsfield Creative Alliance.

Santangelo said the space is behind Tito's Mexican Bar & Grill and formerly housed the Berkshire Running Center.

"It's 3,000 square feet but we don't use all of that," they said. "The back part is going to be a community dark room. We have an occupancy of 129 people, we never see anywhere coming close to that. That's not what we're trying to do there."

The board also saw an update from Pepper Dining Inc. about the status of Chili's liquor license, which didn't yield any new information.

"There are several interested parties in the restaurant. Nothing is concrete yet but I talked to legal last week and they did say there was a couple of interested people," Northeast Director of Operations Alan Anderson reported.

"So nothing new, though, at this time, other than we're just going to keep maintaining."

The lease agreement goes out to 2029 and the company is looking for another business to carry it out.  The restaurant opened for business in 2018.

There are currently 15 other Chili's in Massachusetts, according to a company map of the locations.  Chili's branding has been removed from the building at Berkshire Crossing.

Chairman Thomas Campoli pointed out that there is an interest in having the license used or sold.  
In Pittsfield, if a liquor license is revoked if not replenished. He hopes to see news by June.

"I hope that you guys are diligently pursuing somebody," he said.

"Because at some point with the law, I'm just telling what the law says to us, is we have to start putting some pressure on the licensee to do something with the license because there might be folks out there that could use it or have something going on, either there or somewhere."

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