GREENFIELD — Local restaurateur Amy McMahan will close Mesa Verde this month as she transitions the business into an experimental space to train chefs for the Cape Cod restaurant group she has joined.

She said she will be open as many days as staff can accommodate until the end of the month while she begins renovating the taco and burrito shop into Black Verde Food Lab, an incubator for queer chefs and chefs of color to work for the Black Joy Food Love restaurant group.

McMahan is slated to become chef de cuisine at Black Joy Kitchen, which is expected to open on Martha’s Vineyard this summer as the first Black-owned fine dining restaurant in Oak Bluffs.

“I’ve learned so much and grown so much that I’m just so grateful to have been here 22 years — 22½ years, really,” she said.

McMahan explained she met Chef Ting, of the Black Joy Food Love restaurant group, when Mesa Verde hosted a Haitian pop-up event earlier this year “and things just kept developing.”

In addition to housing the incubator for queer chefs, the restaurant at 10 Fiske Ave. will now also serve as an occasional pop-up restaurant run by Ashley Arthur, owner of the Five Eyed Fox restaurant that closed in Turners Falls in December 2023. Arthur held a successful pop-up at the end of January and jumped at the chance to do it more often.

“Amy has this amazing opportunity to do this really beautiful thing out on the Vineyard, so it kind of felt like the stars aligned, and in the past few months we’ve have formed a really wonderful professional relationship that’s kind of been brewing behind the scenes and has just felt really right for a long time now,” Arthur said, adding that she will take over as soon as McMahan closes Mesa Verde. She hopes to open the pop-up restaurant, under a new name, in the first week of May.

Arthur said she will start slowly, being open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The eatery’s hours, menu and business name have not yet been determined. However, Arthur said she intends to keep the majority of Mesa Verde’s employees.

McMahan mentioned she opened Mesa Verde in 2003 because she saw a need in Greenfield for a Mexican fast-casual concept that Chipotle has since made popular. She announced this week, however, that the restaurant industry has gotten exponentially more difficult over the years and she is excited to start a new life chapter.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.