Lupita’s Set to Open Downtown State College Location

A popular local, family-owned Mexican restaurant is ready to open its new downtown State College location.

Lupita’s Authentic Mexican Food will have its grand opening at 11 a.m. on Saturday at 312 W. Beaver Ave., the former John’s Shanghai on the ground floor of the Palmerton Building, according to a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Hours for the new location will be 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m.-8 p.m. on Sunday.

“We want to thank all of our customers for always supporting us and for making all of this possible!” the restaurant’s owners wrote when they announced plans for the new location in January. “Many thanks to all our colleagues and a thousand more to our family for always supporting us.”

The downtown restaurant will be Lupita’s third.

Owners Maria Guadalupe Rojas Orozco (nicknamed Lupita) and Emilio Lopez Ramirez —both of whom moved to central Pennsylvania in 2001 from their small hometown in Oaxaca, Mexico — opened the first Lupita’s in 2019 inside the Uni-Mart complex at 3180 W. College Ave. in Ferguson Township

The restaurant’s authentic Oaxacan offerings became an immediate hit, leading to a second location at 200 Mill Street in Milesburg, which opened last year.