Alcohol license OK for Lynn eatery

LYNN – The city License Commission has voted to approve the transfer of a beer-and-wine license to the new Lupita restaurant at 18-20 Munroe St.The 48-seat Mexican-style eatery, formerly home to the Pho Lynn restaurant, opened in September but did not have the necessary license to sell beer and wine. Since then, it has operated under the so-called “brown bag” provision that allows patrons to bring their own beer and wine.On Tuesday, with formalities resolved, Lupita owner Erasmo Guevara received the license previously held by Pho Lynn restaurant owner Thuy Diem Le, according to Guevara’s attorney, Samuel Vitali.Guevara and his wife, Francesca Cabrera, have owned and operated the popular but smaller Tacos Lupita restaurant at the corner of Munroe and Washington streets for several years.Given its success, the couple decided to expand by adding the larger restaurant where lunch and dinner are served in a more elegant, slower-paced atmosphere.Before opening Tacos Lupita, Cabrera worked at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, preparing instruments for surgery.Her husband until recently was employed for a Boston maintenance company, but will now work at the restaurant.They have three children ? sons ages 20 and 15, and a 9-year-old daughter. Both husband and wife are natives of the La Unions district of El Salvador, where they met. They arrived in the United States in 1992 and came to Lynn in 2001.