Olaf Growald
Belen Hernandez
When Belen Hernandez opened the first location of her Belenty’s Love restaurant in Granbury two years ago, she spent her first year in business near destitute, barely making enough to scrape by. At that point, a vegan-Mexican restaurant may not have seemed like that great of an idea, after all.
“Some people were kind of mean about it,” she says. “‘You don’t have real Mexican food? No thanks, buh-bye,’ they’d say and walk out. I gotta tell you, it was tough.”
Through word-of-mouth and social media, though, the restaurant eventually caught on. Last year, in fact, Belenty’s did so well, Hernandez and her husband/co-owner, Marcus Hicks, were inspired to open a second location. This one would be in Fort Worth, Hernandez decided, knowing good and well she may be in for another uphill battle.
“I knew, Fort Worth being Fort Worth, home to Stockyards and the cattle industry, that it might be hard to do a vegan-Mexican restaurant here,” she says. “But here’s the thing. A lot of my customers coming to the Granbury store are from Fort Worth. They’re the ones who said, ‘Come to Fort Worth, come to Fort Worth.’ So, coming into Fort Worth, we felt like we already had a fanbase here.”
Opened over the summer, the second location of Belenty’s takes over the old R Taco spot on the Bluebonnet traffic circle. The couple gave the space a nice makeover, painting the room in festive colors; there’s also an attractive patio area with picnic benches and a retractable sunscreen.
Olaf Growald
Cauliflower wings
Just taking a cursory glance at the menu, you might not know Belenty’s food is all vegan. Every Tex-Mex staple you can imagine is served during breakfast, lunch, and dinner, from tacos and enchiladas to nachos and burritos. All are made with meat and dairy substitutes.
Popular items include portobello asada tacos, stuffed with strips of portobello mushrooms; a potato omelet, made with hashbrowns, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, and vegan mozzarella; and the seafood nachos, a mountain of gluten-free chips doused with black beans, spicy cilantro lime rice, salsa, guacamole, and a mix of vegan crabcake and fish.
“Just about everything is made from scratch — all the salsas, seasonings, the flour tortillas, the agua frescas,” Hernandez says. “We make our own ground beef-less. That’s what we call it. It’s made of vegetables and soy and our seasoning. People say they can’t tell the difference between it and the real thing. If you like the ‘impossible’ meat, you’ll like ours.”
The birth of Belenty’s was the result of a turning point in the couple’s lives. After watching a documentary about how chicken meat is processed, their then-teenage son decided consuming animal products — be it milk or meat — wasn’t for him anymore. “What he had seen was traumatizing; he had a change of heart about animal products,” she says. “When he stopped, we all wanted to support him, so we stopped, too.”
Olaf Growald
Portobello tacos
The decision to go vegan not only affected their personal lives but their professional lives, too. Hernandez, who hails from the northern Mexico town of Tamaulipas, is a longtime restaurateur, and at one point, she says, she owned 10 Tex-Mex restaurants in Hillsboro, Whitney, Godley, and Granbury.
Inspired by her son’s new way of eating, she let each restaurant go, one by one, and started making plans over the years to open a vegan restaurant.
“We ate at Spiral Diner all the time,” she says. “It was so inspiring to see what they’re doing and how the community responds in such a supportive, positive way. They proved to us that you can open a successful vegan restaurant.”
Hernandez says she’s developed a following of fans who dine at Belenty’s because they suffer from various health ailments.
“I have customers who have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and they say the food makes them feel better,” she says. “There are definitely so many health benefits to an all-vegan diet. It’s changed my life, my body, the way I feel.”
But, she points out, there’s still a misconception about vegan food that she and her husband must often battle.
“Vegan food, for some reason, has a reputation for being tasteless or bland,” she says. “Like any type of food, a cook or chef has to spend time making it good. I’ve spent years perfecting these recipes, making sure our food is not only healthy but delicious.”
3516 Bluebonnet Circle, belentyslove.com
