San Marcos Grill spreads out in existing location

San Marcos Grill, a Mexican restaurant and bar in north Carson City, earlier this week began expanding in a project that included knocking out a wall and adding space to the east.The grill, located at 260 E. Winnie Lane in the neighborhood shopping center on the north side of the street and east of Carson Street, has been open in the current spot for about six years.Alvaro Brito, owner with his son, Marcos, showed a visitor the new space at mid-week. He said the restaurant was 3,800 square feet before the work, but would spread out another 1,800 square feet via the project.“We just started this a couple of days ago,” he said earlier this week. He said the project stemmed from the fact there was available vacant space in the adjacent unit and growth in business.“It's getting better every day,” said Brito. He said he was looking forward to the additional room and ability to handle an expanding customer base as weather gets better with spring and summer coming. Marcos Abrito, meanwhile, said since opening the restaurant business has increased at a steady pace of about 10 percent until it spiked as Carson City slowly emerged from the down economy across the nation. He said in the past couple of years, clientele has ranged from 10 percent more customers much of the time to as high as a 50 percent boost at peak levels. He said the late week and weekend crowd accounts for much of the increase, “mostly Friday.”