08/23/2026
I have a confession to make about EPCOT.
I go to EPCOT all the time, but I realized recently that I almost always seem to be there for a festival. Food & Wine, Flower & Garden, Festival of the Holidays…there is always something going on, and I get so focused on the festival booths that I sometimes forget there is an entire World Showcase sitting there waiting to be explored.
So lately I’ve been making an effort to go to EPCOT and enjoy the park for what it is, especially the World Showcase.
Which is how I finally ended up at La Cava del Tequila inside the Mexico Pavilion.
I knew this place existed. I’d heard people talk about it for years. But I rarely spend much time inside the Mexico Pavilion, so I had never really paid much attention to it.
That has officially changed.
On this particular day, Orlando was approximately the temperature and humidity of the surface of the sun. Walking into that giant pyramid and immediately being hit with the cool, dark air conditioning felt like entering another dimension.
And to make it even better, Mariachi Cobre was performing.
If you’ve never stopped to listen to them, you absolutely should. They are wonderful, and hearing mariachi music while standing inside the dark, beautiful Mexico Pavilion made the whole thing feel like such an escape from the park outside.
I headed down into the pavilion and found La Cava del Tequila.
They have a walk-up bar where you can grab a margarita to go, and I have heard MANY people say the margaritas here are even better than the ones from the outdoor margarita stand.
But then they offered me a table.
A TABLE?
In the air conditioning?
On this particular day you could have seated me next to a mop bucket and I would have happily accepted.
I sat down and started with the House Margarita.
Margaritas are actually not my number one drink of choice. Every once in a while I get a craving for one, but I’m usually ordering something else. This one, however, was excellent. Really well made, refreshing and exactly what I needed after walking around in the heat.
Then I noticed something very important on the menu.
Chips.
Salsa.
Guacamole.
Queso.
And, even better, there was an option to order all three dips.
Obviously I did.
This was WAY too much food for one person, but I did my best for the sake of travel journalism.
The chips were freshly fried, salty, crispy and crunchy. The salsa was fantastic. The guacamole tasted incredibly fresh and homemade and was refreshingly simple instead of being loaded with a million unnecessary ingredients.
But that queso…
That was the star of the show.
This was legit, creamy, delicious queso, and I would go back just to sit in that cool little tequila cave with a bowl of queso and a margarita.
Speaking of margaritas, I decided there was only one responsible thing to do next.
Order another one.
This time I tried their famous Avocado Margarita.
I really had no idea what to expect from an avocado margarita, and I wasn’t convinced I was going to love it.
I LOVED IT.
The whole experience at La Cava was just so much fun. It’s dark and cool inside, the atmosphere is lively and cheerful, and the service was great. There was a big family near me celebrating a birthday, people were laughing and having drinks, and it just felt like this happy little hideaway tucked inside EPCOT.
I cannot recommend it enough.
HOW TO FIND LA CAVA DEL TEQUILA:
Go inside the big pyramid in the Mexico Pavilion.
Once you enter, head to the right and make your way down the staircase into the main pavilion area. That is where you’ll find La Cava del Tequila.
It is actually pretty easy to miss when you don’t know it’s there, which is apparently what I had been doing for years.
So here is my newest EPCOT advice:
The next time there ISN’T a festival happening, go anyway.
Walk slowly around World Showcase. Go inside the pavilions. Listen to the performers. Find the little restaurants, bars and shops you normally walk past because you’re racing to the next festival booth.
There is so much more to EPCOT than the festivals.
And apparently some of it involves sitting in a dark, air-conditioned tequila cave eating queso and drinking avocado margaritas.
I am willing to continue investigating this matter.
