At Mour Café, every item is intentional.

Words by Guadalupe Triana photos by Shelby Bella

At Mour Café, the guest experience is defined by connections: to friends, to cultures, and of course, to the community. Over the years, Mour has become the quintessential neighborhood café in the South Shore district, offering guests distinctive, locally-sourced meals, brews, and products from their curated store.

While the pandemic has impacted operations at Mour Café, it certainly hasn’t stopped the business from growing and moving forward with updates. In the last year, the Mour team has been busy making enhancements and using the moment to refine goals and objectives, along with their colorful menu.

Mour Café general manager Félix Jiménez explains that before he joined the team, the Mour experience looked quite different. Once on board, owner Naju Maredia tasked him with transforming the brand, look, and feel of Mour.

“If someone gives me the freedom, I’m trouble,” Félix laughs. As part of the café’s new direction and rebrand, Félix wanted Mour to focus more on the power of connections.

“I’m not a chef, but I am a foodie,” he smiles, as he adds, “I feel like food is the connection to cultures and [to] race; it’s a universal language that anyone can understand.”

From farm-to-table meals to handcrafted beer, every item in the establishment has been carefully curated by Félix, who works diligently to ensure his vision is brought to life.

To make that happen, he works with 14 local distributors and over 60 suppliers on a daily basis. The result: food and drink items that are as diverse in background and appearance as they are in unique flavor.

“Art—that’s what we’re doing,” says Félix. “I want you to eat with your eyes first. I want you to admire it.”

One of Mour’s most sought-after menu items is the tlayuda, a Oaxacan dish that features chorizo, asiento, black beans, cabbage, radishes, tomato, avocado, and queso Oaxaca, all carefully arranged on top of a giant corn tostada. Guests have the option to add chicken, beef, al pastor, or shrimp. Traditionally, the tlayuda is folded, but the team wanted to showcase ingredients on the outside.

“About 50% of our clientele is Latino, [and] they know the taste of certain things. People think of their grandma [and] their childhood,” says Félix. “We give them those memories.”

At brunch, the huevos rancheros is a guest favorite. The photo-friendly dish comes with corn sopes, refried beans, cabbage, avocado, over-easy eggs, feta, and ranchero sauce—one that’s different from what people are used to in Texas. He explains, “We all have an idea of what huevos rancheros could be: over a tortilla, over a tostada, and now, over a sope.”

However, Mexican food isn’t the restaurant’s only specialty. Mour also offers the chicken flautas and chicken tikka masala, both featuring a tikka sauce that Félix and chefs Jose Alvarez and Martin Garduño created together.

As a way to honor his friend and owner Naju’s heritage, one of Félix’s goals was to feature hints of Indian flavor throughout the menu. Within the first month of debuting the tikka sauce, the chicken flautas became one of the cafe’s bestselling items.

As Mour continues evolving, every dish and product will continue to be carefully selected with the guest’s best interests in mind, Félix reassures. “I don’t want you to come here to compare us to other places,” he adds. “But I do want you to experience the food that represents this place.” Yet, Félix believes Mour encompasses more than just good food; it represents culture and community.

Outdoor Dining
As part of their renovation efforts, Mour Café has added new outdoor elements to the restaurant, including benches and cafe tables along Shore District Drive. With plenty of seating along the sidewalk and in their newly renovated outdoor dining area in the back, Mour Café encourages the public to host their next private dining event on their beautiful patio.

Contact:
(512) 442-6687
info@mourcafe.com
1414 Shore District
Drive #120
mourcafe.com
@mourcafe