Kansas City’s Corona Cantina #1 still has some problems to work out, but we’ll raise a few bottles to the concept

In 1975, restaurateur Marno McDermott and former Green Bay Packer Max McGee founded a chain of “upscale” Mexican restaurants called Chi-Chi’s. In their heyday, these loud and festive places were as brassy and fun as their contemporary rivals, T.G.I. Friday’s and Houlihan’s. The cocktail menu was elaborate, the servers were young and bouncy (and sang birthday songs), and the food seemed to be a lot more glamorous than the enchilada combo plates served at cozy little madre y padre restaurants on the other side of town.

My friends in the restaurant trade dismissed Chi-Chi’s as serving “gringo Mexican” food. But after work, a lot of them dashed over to the closest location for the potent margaritas and the lively singles scene at the bar. The Chi-Chi’s restaurants aged poorly and ran out of steam long before the chain went belly-up in 2004. By that time, there were better corporate imitations everywhere, such as On the Border and Abuelo’s Mexican Food Embassy.

But there are always new players in the corporate restaurant game, and Kansas City, Kansas, is the test market for a Mexican dining concept that has a lot of potential — once it works out the kinks. The six-week-old Corona Cantina #1 at the Legends complex isn’t aiming to be the 21st-century Chi-Chi’s, thank goodness. There are, however, a couple of subtle similarities, including a young and sexy serving staff and a remarkable array of intoxicating beverages — including six cocktails served in fresh green coconuts hacked open with a machete. Chi-Chi’s had its strawberry margarita. Corona Cantina has the Eroticolada.

This warehouse-sized dining room is supposed to vibrate with fun, fun, fun at all times. Lest you miss that point, the words “have fun” pop up several times on the menu. If that message doesn’t resonate with you as you’re dipping a corn chip in one of 10 signature salsas, it’s your own damn fault.

The Kansas restaurant is the first in a planned series of Corona Cantinas (all of them named “#1” even if the Wyandotte County version is the first) financed by Mexico City-based De Mexico Al Mundo. The investors have licensed the Corona name from Mexico’s Grupo Modelo brewing company. The name has plenty of positive brand recognition. Corona is one of the top-selling imported beers in the United States.

But I was there for the food and couldn’t be tempted by our waiter’s alluring description of a Don Julio margarita made with tequila, orange juice and Blue Curacao. My friends Peg and Shannon were more easily swayed. Shannon ordered one of the elegant cocktails, only to complain after a few sips that it wasn’t really a margarita. Pretty, yes, but not the old-fashioned frozen kind she used to drink at Chi-Chi’s.

The reason I like Corona Cantina #1 is that it’s not like any traditional Mexican chain restaurant. The appetizer selection has some surprising treats, including wonderful beer-battered, fried fish tacos served with tiny fresh corn tortillas and lemony cabbage slaw. I’m tired of runny queso sauces, but I love this cantina’s queso fundido — a smoky concoction of chorizo and manchego and Monterey jack cheeses that isn’t for dipping but for rolling up in a soft corn tortilla. Chips here come with a colorful palette of sauces — a bright-green salsa verde made with cilantro or a pale-pink salsa maya, slightly vinegary and packing a hell of a punch. These were better than the salsa borracha, a smoky brown liquid (it looks like balsamic vinaigrette) that our servers talked up but I took to be a mediocre barbecue sauce.

Unfortunately, after a fish taco or two, a couple of baskets of chips and a plate of remarkably chubby pepper poppers, we were full before our dinners arrived. That didn’t stop me, of course. I made a noble effort to finish my filet cantinflas, a plate of grilled beef tips, onions, bacon and poblano peppers blanketed by molten Oaxaca cheese, but I ran out of corn tortillas long before doing it justice.

Peg and Shannon couldn’t keep up with me. Alas, Peg took a few bites of her oddball entrée — enchiladas made with seasoned chicken and melted Swiss cheese — and waved a white flag. She liked it enough to take home, though, so our server left carryout boxes for her and for Shannon, who enjoyed her mahi-mahi in an intensely spicy pepper-and-onion “Yucatan-style” sauce.

Shannon was tempted to try a dessert. The waiter nearly sold her on this cantina’s version of the traditional tres leches cake (made here with four kinds of milk), until I told her how rich this delicacy can be. We decided not to push our good fortune.

I returned several nights later with Carol Ann, the decorator, who thought the dining room looked “cute,” despite being the size of a Costco. She was adventurous enough to take on one of the restaurant’s signature dishes: fajitas served in a 20-pound molcajete bowl carved out of volcanic rock.

“It’s a gimmicky way of serving regular old Tex-Mex fajitas,” Carol said. “But the presentation is impressive.”

I wish I could have said the same for my Corona-battered fried tilapia. The fish was light, and the batter was airy and crispy, but I had incorrectly assumed that the tamarind-chipotle sauce would be served on the side. Instead, the cloying, sticky-sweet sauce was splashed all over the fish, ruining the entire meal for me.

Even worse was the dessert that our waiter had described in breathtaking terms: a tropical lime tart in a homemade crust. This ghastly affair was a warm lime custard in a ragged circle of soggy phyllo pastry. Later, a restaurant spokesman told me that it had been taken off the menu until a more palatable version could be created. Here’s a hint: chilled custard in a coconut-cookie crust. Or something light and cool. Another dessert, a Caribbean Rum Cake, has also been 86’d. I didn’t get a chance to try that one.

But tinkering with all the details is normal for any new restaurant, let alone the prototype for a whole new chain. On the drive back to midtown, Carol Ann asked me if I’d ever be tempted to go back to the Corona Cantina #1 and eat on my own dime. Sure, why not? If not for the food, then for the fun, fun, fun.