Northwest Fort Worth’s little bar and restaurant: ‘Our food is made by a mother’
Jesus Perez kept hoping more customers would come back to Los Girasoles Bar & Grill after a pandemic and a name change.
Last week, he took his hopes to Facebook.
“We’re just a family trying to give it all we got,” he wrote.
“Our food is made by a mother and it’s [taste is] like when you used to sit down and wait for your mom to make you a plate.”
On a stretch of Texas 199 dominated by two of the area’s best fajitas-and-margaritas hangouts — El Paseo and Mezcales — Los Girasoles, 5601 Jacksboro Highway, is the little homespun family cafe and bar.
It originally opened as Bernardo’s, then switched to Los Girasoles. The “sunflowers” name is a Spanish figure of speech meaning new hope, Perez said.
“It’s just my sister, me and my mom — we want to keep this going,” he said Sunday morning, waiting to serve huevos rancheros or chilaquiles con huevos to customers who braved the cold.
Maria Perez makes mole enchilada (enmoladas) lunch specials for $10, pozole, molcajete — just about everything the big restaurants make.
The dishes are less complicated, and the experience is more like dining at home. When you ask for chicken enchiladas, you soon hear Maria Perez in the kitchen chopping the chicken.
But the cooking is honest and straightforward.
Also, the green sauce is packed with jalapeno. It’s not hot by north side standards, but on the west side it’s hotter than almost anyone’s except the poblano-serrano “macho sauce” at Josefina’s in River Oaks.
The restaurant had already been promoting on Facebook and Instagram sites and even Facebook Marketplace.
But the breakthrough came Jan. 5, when his post asking for help landed in “foodie” groups.
Newcomers posted compliments.
What’s amazing is that Jesus Perez was the only one crafting and placing social media posts. A restaurant with a staff of three people still found time to promote and advertise better than other much larger restaurants.
“We’ve had some new people,” Perez said.
“If we can keep this up, we might be OK. But this weather ... “ he said with a nod toward the door.
Los Girasoles Bar & Grill is 1 mile east of Loop 820 on Texas 199. It serves lunch and dinner daily except Mondays, plus breakfast weekends; 682-499-5896, facebook.com/LosgirrasolesbarNgrill.
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