Alux Restaurant & Lounge

Useful Information

Location:	Playa del Carmen.
Open:	All year daily 17:30-23. [2021]
Fee:	Free. [2021]
Classification:	Karst cave Cave Restaurant
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:
Guided tours:	n/a
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Alux Restaurant & Lounge, Av. Juárez, Mz. 217 Lote, 2, Colonia Ejidal, Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Tel: +52-984-206-1401, Tel: +52-984-122-7365. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

Description

Alux is a restaurant and bar, located at the tourist destination Playa del Carmen at the gulf of Mexico. The whole town depends on tourism, and this is just one of numerous restaurants frequented by hundreds of tourists daily. But this one is special, in a way which made the listing on this site necessary: it is located inside a natural cave.

The whole peninsula of Yucatan is riddled with caves, an enormous system which drains the plateau underground to the Gulf of Mexico. Caves end under the sea hundreds of meters from the beach. So it it not unusual that caves can be found right below the city Playa del Carmen. The karst caves are abundantly decorated with stalagmites and stalactites, there are underground pools and rivers. Caves are generally not very good for restaurants, as they are cool and damp. It is possible to heat caves, but probably very expensive. But in México, close to the equator, the average outside temperature is pretty high and so is the cave temperature. As a result the cave is naturally air conditioned to an ideal temperature.

For the use as a restaurant, the cave was developed similar to a show cave. There are concrete paths, electric light and handrails. Numerous chambers were transformed into different kinds of pubs. There is a restaurant which seats 150 persons, a Bar Lounge for 110 persons which allows live concerts, a side branch of the cave is coverted into a VIP space, Bar Tortuga is a private bar for up to 50 persons, which may be booked for receptions, and finally Salón Califa is another VIP area.