On July 26, 2023, Steve and Christie Moreira opened the doors to York’s very first Portuguese restaurant, Mesa Moreira—an expression of love for the culture that has shaped their lives and an opportunity to create a thriving community that feels more like family.
Mesa Moreira is inspired by Steve Moreira’s rich family roots that have spanned across continents. His parents, David and Celeste, moved to the United States in 1975 after living in Portugal and later Angola, where Steve’s mother owned a bakery. After moving stateside, they settled in one of the nation’s largest Portuguese communities, New Jersey, where he and his brother were raised.
“We were [a] big family. When I was growing up, we’d get together on Sundays and [there would be] 100 people and my mom was like the chef,” Steve says. “Everybody loved my mom’s food.”
After meeting his wife, Christie, a Pennsylvania native, the pair made their way to Central Pa. The two operated a renovation and design company until they decided it was time for a change in direction.
“[My mom] always wanted to have a restaurant, and I’m kind of like living her dream for her,” Steve says.
The menu at Mesa Moreira is comprised of authentic Portuguese dishes like hearty portions of Salmão Recheado, a stuffed salmon topped with savory house-made crab meat, and Bacalhau a Lagereiro, a bone-in codfish imported from the home country, grilled in olive oil and garlic and served alongside peppers, onions and baked red potatoes. By combining authentic Portuguese with complementary local ingredients—like fresh pasta from York's own Tutoni's Flour Shop and locally sourced meat—and sprinkling in the team’s own creative flair, Mesa Moreira is cultivating a menu that’s all their own.
“We call it our Mesa Moreira style,” Christie says, noting that the menu is constantly evolving, with the most recent additions being goat and oxtail. Chef Eduardo Costas spearheads Mesa Moreira’s menu development. Originally from Portugal, Eduardo moved to Newark, New Jersey in 2006 and spent a decade cooking in the area’s esteemed Portuguese restaurants. Regardless of what twists the team chooses to take with its menu, each new dish calls back to the Portuguese roots that are the very heart of the restaurant.
As far as how the food is served, the pace of dining at Mesa Moreira is modeled after a European method of hospitality.
“[When] you come in, expect to be patient. Put your phone away, come with your friends, have some wine, have some sangria, you’re gonna be here a while,” Steve says. “You’re gonna eat, you’re gonna eat slow, you’re gonna enjoy the food. It’s just that time to like forget everything else.”
After guests are seated in the spacious dining room with windows that look out toward the streets of downtown York, a server welcomes each table with a heaping basket of Portuguese rolls, delivered fresh from a Portuguese bakery, alongside a portion of house-made olives.
“We bring a lot of people from 30 minutes [away]. We have people driving an hour and a half to come here and eat,” Christie says. “A lot of people say when they walk in, they feel like they’ve left York.”
As leaders in York’s food scene, Steve and Christie are determined to make Mesa Moreira an establishment overflowing with abundant hospitality and warmth. They say they are passionate about making sure everyone who walks into the restaurant feels like they are dining alongside friends and neighbors, whether it’s their very first time visiting or they frequent the restaurant every day for lunch.
“Make sure you go over and say hi to [the guests],” Steve tells his serving staff during their training. “Portuguese restaurants are about community and family. When you go in, you know the servers, they know you. They know your kids, they know what they like.”
It’s in this same spirit that Steve and Christie put their energy toward cultivating a presence at Downtown York’s First Friday events. By booking live music, renting bounce houses and face painting for local kids, and hosting with the same intentionality that infuses the daily dining experience in the restaurant, Mesa Moreira is drawing crowds each month.
“I have pictures of hundreds of people on the street,” Christie says. “It’s completely changed the way this whole block of Beaver Street brings in people and interacts with the community.”
To keep engaging local diners, Mesa Moreira hosts live entertainment every Friday night at 8 p.m., drawing the group of regulars they know and love and a whole new crowd of fresh faces who find their way to downtown York on any given weekend.
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“My goal is to have this place busy every day, from lunch to dinner,” Steve says, expressing that a packed house is reminiscent of the classic Portuguese restaurants his family knew so well, where the food is plentiful, drinks are always full, and the comfortable chatter of neighbors swells to fill the room. “You look across two tables, and it’s someone that you know, and then you’re talking to them, and then you’re moving over and sitting with them and chatting for a while.”
“It’s so humbling to sit in the restaurant when it’s full and just look and be like, ‘Wow, we did this? We brought all these people together,’” Christie says. “[The response] has been absolutely incredible. We’ve been so blessed and so supported.”
Experience Mesa Moreira for yourself. Make a reservation at mesamoreira.com
Mesa Moreira | 58 W Market St, York, PA | 717-650-1499 | mesamoreira.com | @themesamoreira
