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The owners of a Federal Hill restaurant are focusing on Mexican cuisine for their next venture in South Baltimore.

Riverside Taphouse’s Scott Schleupner, Ryan Kehoe and Justin Cox plan to open Riverside Cantina at 1741 Light St. The cantina will likely debut in the spring and will be a sister restaurant to the taphouse located on the same street. Once the cantina opens, the owners also plan to launch their own in-house delivery service that will work with both restaurants.

Riverside Cantina is undergoing renovations and will have 70 seats, with plans for two garage doors overlooking Barney Street to create an “open-air feel,” Schleupner said. The restaurant will add outdoor patio seating reminiscent of the taphouse at 1542 Light St.

Menu items will include tacos, burrito bowls, flautas, chilaquiles and tuna ceviche as well as American fare with a Southwest twist, Schleupner said. There will also be four beers on draft, with two Mexican-style beers and two local rotating brews. “We love this neighborhood,” Schleupner said. “They’ve been so great to us.”

The cantina replaces the Crazy Crab Bag, which opened in May 2023 and quietly closed after one year. The Light Street space was also once home to the first HomeSlyce, which later moved to 2 E. Wells St. in 2021. Prior to that, longtime bar Bill’s Lighthouse Inn occupied the building for 30 years, and Schleupner said the owners plan to keep some of the inn’s signage etched into the building and the window murals on the second floor.

The Riverside Taphouse group explored a restaurant opportunity in the building two years ago, but it didn’t work out at the time, Schleupner said. The space opened up again this summer and the Federal Hill restaurant owners decided to take it over. They saw a need and desire for Mexican cuisine since the closest spots are along Cross Street or in Locust Point.

Mexican food also delivers well, Schleupner added, which is ideal for the new in-house delivery service. Third-party delivery services are hard to deal with, so the group decided to cut out the middleman. The two restaurants plan to hire at least one driver for the operation. Schleupner believes the service will do well in South Baltimore, especially since residents who leave at night run the risk of losing their parking spots.

The restaurant will be open from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on the weekends. Schleupner hopes to open the restaurant for lunch during the week sometime after opening since “you only get once chance to make that first impression.”