Thursday, April 25, 2024
Belen Hernandez and husband Marcus Hicks sold Monte’s Breakfast Burritos to open a vegan-Mexican restaurant because they wanted to help make it easier for fellow Granbury residents to eat plant-based food.
Vegan-Mexican restaurant Belenty’s Love opened on U.S. 377 two years ago, and they have since opened a location in Fort Worth.
Granbury isn’t known for its vegan population, and Hernandez said when she told people they were opening a vegan-Mexican restaurant in Granbury, they called her crazy.
“The first year was really bad,” Hernandez said. “It wasn’t even business. But I never cared about it a lot because I love what I do, and I love to help people. And when people started coming here asking for help, I was satisfied.”
Hernandez said her first customer, Paul, came in asking for help with diabetes, so she gave him recommendations of what to eat to help regulate his blood sugar.
“He started eating it,” Hernandez said. “He’s vegan now. Changed his life, he’s okay with his diabetes too. It was really bad. Now he’s okay.”
Regular customer Doug Richards said before he went vegan he had five bypass heart surgeries, and medicine wasn’t helping; so, he decided to try changing his diet.
“After I started on (veganism) in about three months I didn’t have to take any more medicine,” Richards said. “It cured it all up.”
Hernandez said people don’t need to be vegan to try her food; she likes to cook for everyone.
“I love first-time people,” Hernandez said. “I always tell them, just whatever you feel comfortable to eat, just let me know, I’ll fix it for you. If you don’t like it, you don’t need to pay.”
Hernandez said growing up in Mexico influenced her choice to open Belenty’s Love.
My people from Mexico, they’re vegan,” Hernandez said. “Most of my people in Mexico are poor people, they don’t have enough money to afford meat. And in Mexico people live forever. Like our grannies and grandpas, they live forever because they don’t put nothing bad in their body. Everything, it comes from the earth in Mexico. So that is vegan. The word vegan, that’s what it means for me.”
Hernandez said drinking her cactus smoothie can help with diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol. She will give you the recipe, but make sure to be happy when you make it.
“I always tell the ladies (in the kitchen), when you cook, cook with love,” Hernandez said. “You cannot cook if you don’t put love in the food. It’s going to taste bad. If you cook when you’re mad, it’s not going to taste good.”
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