The Block Island Maritime Institute is home to many things these days: a fitness center, a cookie store, an ice cream shop, and now a Mexican restaurant specializing in one of the great seafood dishes: ceviche.
Calaveras, which has had a location in the Post Office building since 2015, now has a cevichería at the BIMI Center. Owned by Julio and Iliana Mendoza, the new shop will be open seven days a week from noon to 9 p.m.
“Both Julio and I love ceviche, and Block Island is a place where fish should be celebrated,” Iliana said. The original Calaveras location specializes in what Mendoza called “Meixcan street food:” — burritos, quesadillas, and tacos — a taquería.
The new location “is a place where you can get a nice, refreshing ceviche on a hot summer day,” said employee Paige Miller. Ceviche is a traditional Mexican dish, made with raw fish cured in citrus juices and added spices. Calaveras serves their ceviche with a side of light, salty tortilla chips. Building a custom-made ceviche requires a number of steps: picking a marinade (lime juice, AquaChile, Chipotle, Bloody Maria); then a protein (fish, shrimp, octopus; then a topping (tomato, onion, cilantro, pineapple jalapeno and others).
Like many other eating establishments on Block Island, Calaveras at the BIMI Center is straw-free, as will the Post Office location once they run out of the stock they purchased last year, said Mendoza, and the take-out containers are made of strong paper.
The new location will only be open through August daily from noon to 9 p.m.
For more information, visit hellocalaveras.com or call (401) 675-7584.
The Old Harbor location can be reached by calling (401) 466-2495.
The Mendozas also operate a year-round Calaveras on Kingston Road in Peace Dale.