Big Slide Brewery Goes All In on Mexican
LAKE PLACID - If you haven’t been to Big Slide Brewery in a while, you’re in for a surprise: The menu has been given a Mexican makeover.
Now, instead of chicken sandwiches and poutine, you’ll find tacos ($17), burritos ($19), and quesadillas ($18) plus more ambitious offerings like chiles rellenos ($21) and a seafood pozole ($30).
The transformation began in winter with a menu that still included things like pizza, albeit with Mexican-inspired toppings like birria, a Mexican stew made by braising meat with chiles and spices until aromatic and meltingly tender. Big Slide’s was made with locally sourced beef and shredded to top the house-made dough along with Mexican cheese. Baked to blackened and bubbly perfection, it was finished with the most adorable micro cilantro from a nearby farm and served as birria traditionally is, with a dipping sauce made from the braising liquid. We loved it. Unfortunately, it’s also off the menu.
On May 15, Big Slide unveiled an updated menu with even more traditional Mexican offerings. It’s as if the first launch was to test the waters and now they’re all in. Goodbye pizza and hamburgers, hello chimichangas and enchiladas.
According to General Manager Anthony Espinoza, the transformation was a six-month process that started with a desire for change and the idea that good, authentic-feeling Mexican food was hard to find in Lake Placid. Like many Adirondack restaurants, Big Slide features locally-sourced ingredients and wanted to stay true to that approach while offering diners something new.
So, how have people reacted? Espinoza acknowledges that some customers have been initially put off, but that “as soon as that plate gets in front of them, they are ecstatic.”
I’m one of those people. When a friend and I popped in for lunch, I was afraid I would miss my usual: the pulled chicken bahn mi. Instead, we were won over by the elote fritters ($15), a riff on the Mexican street food of corn on the cob coated with crema, chile powder, lime, and cotija cheese. Six to a plate and huge, the roasted-corn studded fritters are gloriously misshapen (I’m suspicious of perfectly round ones) with little nubs here and there. They have a donut-like, tender, almost creamy interior and a contrasting browned and crisped exterior. Though fried, they don’t feel heavy or greasy which allowed me to eat too many of them. A generous drizzle of a maple chipotle aioli reminds you that this is Mexican food by way of the Adirondacks while adding even more flavor and texture to the dish.
These crisp-outside, tender-inside elote fritters won us over. The big portion is perfect for sharing.
Based on how good the meat was on that birria pizza, I’m excited to go back and try the Burrito Mojado ($19) as it features barbacoa, another aromatic, slow-cooked shredded meat. If it’s as good as the birria, count me in. If you order it, be prepared as this is not a pick-up-and-eat burrito. Instead, the stuffed tortilla gets generously smothered in a house-made enchilada sauce and is best eaten with a knife and fork.
During the first iteration there were more options for those not in the mood for Mexican, including a margherita pizza and a bacon cheeseburger - albeit one served with tortilla chips in place of fries. With the deeper dive into Mexican-inspired dishes, there are fewer of their former items available, but you can still get Buffalo chicken wings ($18), pretzel bites ($11/$15) or steamed mussels, though these have a slight Mexican accent thanks to the addition of chorizo and cilantro.
The birria pizza on the first Mexican iteration was delicious, but it’s gone now. Hopefully the barbacoa will deliver.
Like most Mexican restaurants, Big Slide provides complimentary chips and salsa. The salsa is just how I like it: loose and on the thin side and flavored with ample onion and fresh cilantro. The flour tortilla chips are house-fried but the corn chips are not and so are a tad lackluster.
You’ll find some desserts also have a Mexican accent like a tres leches cake served adorably in a mason jar. The desserts, along with the baked goods served at Sunday brunch (which now includes a couple Mexican dishes along with the regular menu), come courtesy of the brewery’s on-site bakery, Baked Placid.
You may rightfully be wondering if the beer has changed as well. Along with their IPAs, porters, and sours, you can now find Mexican-style lagers and perhaps a rotating Mexican amber to pair with the new menu. There’s also craft cocktails, margaritas on tap, and Mexican sodas and mocktails.
Inside, some additions to the decor hint at the new cuisine. Vibrantly colored, 3-D paper stars hang from the ceiling, and the lids of some of the barrels that line the walls have been painted by Andres Yates, who is not only Big Slide’s bartender, but a talented tattoo artist as well. His colorful, fantastical animal paintings (a moose here, a fox there) are reminiscent of the brightly colored, Mexican folk art animal sculptures called Alebrijes.
From the outside, however, you’d be hard-pressed to know Big Slide serves Mexican food. A Mexican flag positioned by the brewery’s sign waves windy days, but for now most walk-ins will be in for a surprise. Hopefully it’s a happy one.
GOOD TO KNOW
Big Slide doesn't take reservations, but you can check the wait time on Yelp and add your name to the list if there’s a wait.
There is a kids’ menu that includes chicken fingers along with a cheese quesadilla, a chicken taco, and more.
In good weather, there is outside seating.
5686 Cascade Road, Lake Placid, NY 12946
May 2026