What it is
Republica Empanada is a pan-Latin restaurant in a converted bungalow at the corner of First Avenue and Hibbert in Southside Heights, the old residential neighborhood just south of Mesa’s Main Street. Its claim, which nobody in Arizona has contested, is the largest selection of South American-style savory empanadas in the state: a few dozen varieties, baked rather than fried, from the Argentine beef that anchors the menu to a Puerto Rican Boricua stuffed with ham hock and arroz con gandules, a Cubano, spinach and cheese, bean-and-potato and jalapeño poppers, a cheeseburger for the child who will not be moved, and seasonal specials. Dessert empanadas follow, and the one to know is the Dizzy Fig, filled with figs grown in Mesa.
The house has a dining room, a bar and a patio, and a sign noting the visit from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, which came through some years ago and produced the lines that have since subsided. There is a short menu of plates and soups for anyone who does not want pastry, and chimichurri and house hot sauces for everyone who does.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Because Scottsdale’s Latin food is Mexican and Sonoran, as our Mexican restaurants note lays out in detail, and the Southern Hemisphere is thin on the ground. This is the Valley’s empanada house, it is cheap, it feeds a group, and it is three blocks from the Mesa Arts Center, which makes it the pre-show dinner for anyone with Ikeda Theater tickets. On its own, from Scottsdale, it is a stretch; as part of a Mesa evening it is exactly right.
The practical version
Twenty-eight minutes from Old Town via the 101, the 202 and Country Club Drive, south of Main to First Avenue. Street parking on First and Hibbert. Open Monday through Saturday from mid-morning through dinner, closed Sundays. Order a mixed half dozen per two or three people. Save room for the fig.
When to go
Weeknight dinners are the easy ones, and at 5:30 on an arts-center night the room is half full and the kitchen is fast. Saturday opens at ten for an early lunch and runs late. Sundays it is closed, which matters if you are planning a Mesa museum day; go to Worth Takeaway instead. Second Fridays, when downtown stays open late, the patio is the place to be and the wait is real.
What to order
Order by the half dozen and share. The Argentine beef is the baseline. The Boricua, ham hock and rice with pigeon peas inside a pastry, is the one the critics pick and the one that tastes least like anything else in Arizona. The Cubano does what the sandwich does in less space. The spinach and cheese and the poppers cover vegetarians. The cheeseburger is for children and is, honestly, fine. Then the Dizzy Fig, which uses figs from Mesa’s old orchards and is the dessert this city should be known for, and a dulce de leche one for the table.
The neighborhood
Southside Heights is the first residential grid south of Main, a few blocks of bungalows and small commercial buildings that have been filling in with restaurants as downtown has grown. Republica is three blocks from the arts center and the Center/Main light-rail station, around the corner from Cider Corps on Robson, and a short walk from everything in the downtown Mesa guide.
The story
Downtown Mesa in the early 2010s was waiting for the light rail and losing storefronts to the construction, and the places that opened then, on the side streets rather than Main, were betting on what the train would bring. Republica Empanada took a house in Southside Heights and built a menu that no one else in the Valley was doing: the empanada as it exists across South America and the Caribbean, in its regional forms, baked, in quantity, with a few local jokes (the cheeseburger, the fig) folded in. The food press noticed, the Food Network came, and when the train opened in 2015 and the arts center crowds started walking south for dinner, the restaurant was already the neighborhood’s anchor.
The figs are the detail that places it. Mesa was an orchard and farm town for a century, citrus and figs and dates on the canals the Hohokam had dug, and the Dizzy Fig is one of the only dishes in the city that uses them, and it is a better piece of local history than most plaques.
The Scottsdale connection
Scottsdale’s own Latin table is Sonoran, and our Mexican restaurants note and what to eat note are honest that the city’s strengths run to tacos, carne asada and the big patio cantinas. For a visitor who has done those and wants the other half of the hemisphere, this is the closest serious version, and the budget note would add that a group eats here for a fraction of a Scottsdale dinner.
Getting there
The 101 south to the 202 east, exit Country Club Drive, south through Main Street to First Avenue, east to Hibbert; the restaurant is on the northeast corner with street parking around it. Twenty-eight minutes from Old Town, thirty-five from the Camelback corridor. From Tempe, the light rail to Center/Main and a three-block walk; from Scottsdale, as the getting around note explains, it is a drive or a rideshare.