FEATURES • DESTINATIONS
Motel Mexicola:
The Art of Being
Conscious in
Creative Chaos
Words & Photography by The Punch
By day, Seminyak is a busy hustle with motorbikes, incense smoke, and the scent of salt on skin. Then you catch the pink, turquoise and electric glow seeping from behind arches. Step through the gates of Motel Mexicola, and Bali slips away. You land somewhere louder, looser, and unashamedly alive. Neon lights reflect off mosaic tiles; saints and skeletons grin from the walls; a brass trumpet cuts through the chatter before the bass takes over.
What started in 2013 as a small taco joint has become one of the island’s cultural touchstones–a delirious blend of feast, faith, and fiesta. It’s a space where Balinese warmth meets Mexican exuberance, where strangers end the night dancing on tables, salt still clinging to their glasses.
The founders never wanted just a restaurant. They wanted a feeling–something that bottled Mexico’s unfiltered joy and poured it straight into Bali’s heart. What they built was a stage: half temple, half carnival, always pumping to the same chaotic rhythm of togetherness.
The Pulse That Never Sleeps
Come sunset, the courtyard flickers to life. Waiters waltz through the crowd with trays of tacos al pastor, the air heavy with lime and charcoal smoke. Overhead, papel picado flags tremble in the ceiling fans. It’s a scene that borders on surreal: part family dinner, part street party, part pilgrimage.
Behind the scenes, Denny Bakiev, the group’s Beverage Director, keeps the spirit alive. For him, Mexicola is “the closest you can get to Mexico without travelling to Mexico,” and he’s not wrong. Margaritas come in waves–the same cocktail that once inspired a record-attempt night of tequila-fuelled celebration–while DJs spin old Latin vinyl that could wake the dead.
But the chaos is deliberate. Every detail, from the tiled altar-bar to the sun-bleached colors, carries intention. Each Mexicola outpost–Seminyak, Canggu, and the soon-to-come Uluwatu–draws from a different region of Mexico: Acapulco’s seaside swagger, Yucatán’s smoke and citrus, Baja’s slow-burn coast. The result is an ongoing conversation between two worlds: Bali’s sense of offering and Mexico’s refusal to take life too seriously.
Sustainability as Necessity
For all its noise, Mexicola’s beating heart is quiet and pragmatic. Sustainability here isn’t a mere marketing angle; it’s the foundation beneath the dance floor. “If we want to exist another 12 years,” Denny says, “we have to protect the island that makes it possible.”
In 2023, Mexicola joined forces with Potato Head to co-found the Community Waste Project, a shared waste-management facility tucked between Benoa and Pesanggaran. The idea was simple: what leaves the bin shouldn’t end up in a river. So the team bought their own trucks, built a sorting center, and began tracing every bottle, can, and bag back to its source.
Each night, waste is separated at the restaurant before being taken to the facility, where it’s broken down into compost, recyclable materials, and reusable goods. The numbers aren’t the point; the consistency is. It’s about making accountability part of the daily–another movement in the nightly choreography.
Partner venues now send their waste there too, forming a small but growing collective of hospitality businesses choosing action over performance. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s the kind that keeps paradise from suffocating on its own excess.
The People Driving Change
If the system works, it’s because people care. Inside Mexicola, a dedicated sustainability team–nicknamed eco-champions–trains staff daily on separation, composting, and reuse. At first, convincing a restaurant that serves hundreds each night to pause and sort trash felt impossible. Then habit took over. Now, waste management is muscle memory. Staff move instinctively between colored bins, teaching new recruits what goes where and why. Many take those habits home, showing neighbors how to compost or cut down on plastic. In a place known for its indulgence, that ripple of awareness might be the most radical act of all.
Community at the Core
With multiple venues and hundreds of employees, Mexicola’s influence stretches beyond its walls. Nearly every team member is local, from line cooks to floor managers. Training is constant: English classes, hospitality skills, leadership mentoring. It’s less corporate ladder, more family tree–each person growing alongside the brand. Sourcing follows the same logic. Whenever possible, produce comes from Balinese and Indonesian farms. If a local supplier’s product doesn’t yet meet the group’s standard, the team works with them to improve rather than replace. It’s patient work, but it keeps value on the island. Every tomato, every chili, every handmade tortilla becomes a collaboration–between farmer and chef, island and idea.
The Art of Keeping It Real
Longevity in hospitality often dulls the edges; Mexicola sharpens them. The team travels regularly to Mexico–wandering through markets, watching street cooks, tracing flavors back to their roots. Those pilgrimages feed new menus, updated cocktails, and subtle reinventions that keep the concept breathing.
Back in Bali, the team experiments relentlessly: new marinades, new playlists, new murals by local artists. Nothing here is static. The paint chips, and someone adds more color. The music changes, and the room adjusts its heartbeat. It’s this willingness to evolve that keeps Mexicola from becoming a caricature of itself.
12 years on, it still feels like a place in motion–equal parts memory and momentum.
A CONSCIOUS FUTURE
On the cliffs of Uluwatu, the next chapter is already taking shape. The new venue–still in the making–is imagined as a coastal evolution of the Mexicola spirit, borrowing the laid-back rhythm of Baja California. The promise: the same kaleidoscopic energy, grounded by sharper sustainability goals.
Plans include deeper waste integration, new composting collaborations, and more circular design. It’s less about expansion and more about refinement–proving that joy and responsibility can grow in tandem.
Denny calls it “closing the loop.” Everything that enters the system–food, energy, material, human effort–must find its way back again. “Throwing away doesn’t exist,” he says. “Everything goes somewhere. Everything becomes something.”
A Celebration That Sustains
Motel Mexicola defies easy categorization. It’s a restaurant, yes. A bar, a party, a community experiment–all of that too. But look closer, and you’ll see what it really is: a living organism built on joy, discipline, and the belief that celebration itself can be sustainable. Beneath the tequila shots and disco lights is a small army of people quietly sorting, composting, and educating. Beneath the music, a philosophy lies: that happiness doesn’t have to come at the island’s expense. It’s loud. It’s messy. It’s full of heart. And like Bali itself, it finds its grace in contradiction–where chaos and care, excess and ethics, dance to the same beat.
EXPLORE THE PUNCH