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Jose Garces
Iron Chef announces opening date of Allentown restaurant
Stacy Wescoe//March 17, 2025//
An opening date has been set for a new restaurant coming to the Downtown West section of Allentown.
José Garces, a James Beard Award-winning chef said that he is opening Rosa Blanca March 24. It’s the first of two restaurants he has planned for the city.
The restaurant is located on the ground floor of The Nines residential building at 950 Hamilton Street.
Prior to the official opening, Rosa Blanca will open to the public for two dinner and cocktail preview nights on Friday, March 21, and Saturday, March 22, from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m.
The restaurant will be closed on Sunday, March 23, before beginning its regular schedule on Monday, March 24.
The restaurant will be open Mondays and Tuesdays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. for breakfast and lunch and Wednesdays through Sundays from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. for breakfast and lunch and 4 p.m. through 12 a.m. for dinner and drinks
Rosa Blanca is a Cuban café and rum bar offering fast-casual service featuring breakfast and lunch before switching into a full-service restaurant and bar for dinner.
“This kind of hybrid concept is fairly unique in the Lehigh Valley,” said Garces. “Rosa Blanca will flow from a breezy café with classic Cuban coffee and pastries by day to a tropical rum bar by night, bringing Little Havana in Miami to Allentown through great music, warm hospitality and, of course, wonderful food and drinks.”
Rosa Blanca’s lunch and dinner menu will offer hearty Cuban specialties and comfort food, from Cubanos to empanadas, as well as including soups, salads and entrees. The restaurant will also offer to-go service at a window on Hamilton Street and will begin catering this spring.
Garces’ second new restaurant in Allentown, Okatshe, will be his modern take on traditional Japanese izakaya. It will open in the second quarter of 2025 at a soon-to-be-announced location downtown.
An Iron Chef known for helping to build Philadelphia’s restaurant scene in the early 2000s, Garces said he was attracted to downtown Allentown by the city’s continued revitalization and the placemaking efforts of City Center Group.
