Brownwood’s newest dining experience, the Sunflour Cafe located at 1205 Coggin Avenue, opened its doors in limited fashion this week and is preparing to kick the business into high gear next week, according to owner Stephanie Alvarenga.

Alvarenga, a Comanche resident and chef with a background in the military, cited her travels across the globe as one of the motivating factors for opening the Sunflour Cafe.

“The main reason I decided to go ahead and open is this is my love and what I’ve always wanted to do,” Alvarenga said. “I’m finally in the position and point in my life when I can. It’s like go big or go home at this point. I was born overseas and lived most of my childhood overseas and then I enlisted in the military and lived overseas in even more places. I was a translator in the military and one of the things you learn with a language is the culture, the religion and the food – and what became my passion was international cuisine.”

Alvarenga shared some of the varieties of food that will be offered during normal business hours, which are currently 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

“We provide internationally inspired dishes – Korean food, Pakistani food, Moroccan food, a lot of different kinds of cuisine you can’t really find here,” Alvarenga said. “Honestly, that’s what led us to open. I can’t find my Moroccan food, so I just thought I’d do it myself. I do hope it’s something Brownwood has been craving as well, or maybe it’s something they never knew they always wanted.”

During the first week of business, Alvarenga got a better idea of what patrons of the restaurant are expecting.

“This week showed us what Brownwood is looking for,” she said. “We wanted to do breakfast but we aren’t getting the foot traffic for breakfast and that may be because of our hours or location, or it may be because breakfast is not what people are looking for. But I did see a resounding request for dinner. People said they can’t make it during lunch hours, but they want to come eat. Thursday night we had a huge influx that came during dinner and that kind of shows us what Brownwood wants.”

Alvarenga added there will be a standing menu with occasional rotating items.

“We’ll have appetizers, combos and then each week we’ll have rotating menu items,” she said. “Next week we’re looking at either a Lebanese dish or from the Basque Country in Spain, I haven’t decided yet. We’ll have our gyros, our Moroccan food, Pakistani food, we’ll have Thai on the menu.”

Regarding the location of the restaurant, Alvarenga said, “It’s the perfect size for what we’re trying to do here. My landlord is incredible and the property manager is an amazing, hard worker. It came together and we have other eateries nearby with the Pizza Company next door, Domino’s and Lemongrass down the street. We feel it’s a good location with plenty of parking. We love the reception we’ve gotten in Brownwood, we’re happy to be here and happy to provide something special and unique to the Brownwood community.”

The name of the restaurant, according to Alvarenga, was inspired by the trials and tribulations that life sometimes presents.

“After I retired from the military I bounced around a little bit with my kids,” she said. “I would say in the past few years I’ve taken a couple of hits professionally and personally with my health as a disabled vet, so it’s been up and down. But that has made me resilient and one of the things I love about sunflowers is they are a symbol of resiliency. I’ve always loved them, we have them growing on our farm, and I love that no matter what – drought, too much rain, crazy heat or crazy cold – they still pop up.”

Though the Sunflour Cafe has just opened, Alvarenga already has her eye on growth.

“We’d like to expand and get a bigger location eventually,” she said. “Right now I have a small farm in Comanche and all the lamb you see on our menu comes from our farm. We have a butcher in Weatherford and another butcher in Muenster. We take our pork, lamb, chicken and turkeys there. A lot of the meat items are from our farm. My goal is to expand that and do a true farm to table experience.”