On a warm fall afternoon, Streat Corner Kitchen by Loli’s boasts a full house. The room is lively, conversations between friends flow freely and the accommodating staff shuffles among helping guests, preparing orders and running food out. Despite the busy atmosphere, as of this writing the family-owned restaurant received city approval to operate only a few weeks ago.
“[My family and I] celebrated our certificate of occupancy a week before opening,” said Sarah Flores, co-owner alongside her sister Sabrina Lozano. “We all wanted this spot to be right, which is why [renovating] took a year and a half. We encouraged each other all the way through, and that night, looking back on our journey as a family, was such a special moment.”
During their four-year food truck tenure as Loli’s Streatery, Flores and Lozano built quite a dedicated fanbase and made a name for themselves during Artwalks and weekly farmers’ markets. Named after their grandmother Loli, whose cooking they grew up on and who also once owned a restaurant downtown, the scratch kitchen serves reimagined versions of classic Tex-Mex dishes. Lozano described their new locale on Water Street as a picture-perfect culmination of years of hard work.
“Those Artwalk nights were always a boost of confidence and a feel-good moment for us,” said Flores. “People are more receptive to our food and let us know when they like it. [Because of this], we always knew we wanted to find a space in the Artwalk footprint.”
A combination of family encouragement, love for cooking Tex-Mex and a divinely timed Craigslist ad pushed them to commit to a previously unexpected food truck journey whose window opened for the first time in June 2021.
Their menu included traditional offerings like street tacos next to spinoffs indulging in their own creativity. Of these creations, the loaded corn bowl became their first item to amass a sea of fanatics. Flores and Lozano’s corn-and-chile logo proudly credits Streat Corner Kitchen as the “home of the original loaded corn bowl.”
Along with the South Texas hot chicken — a twist on Nashville’s classic dish, plated with pickled jalapeños and Texas toast — both items remain fan favorites, selling well enough to have their own vegan counterparts. Still, the sisters encourage returning customers to explore the whole menu, recommending the 3 Cheesy Breezy and Lozano’s personal favorite, Mom’s Enchiladas Nachos, made with their mother Yvonne’s salsa recipe.
“A lot of our menu pulls from different cultures,” explained Flores. “We’re mostly Tex-Mex, but we also have Nashville-inspired chicken, a Korean-style loaded bowl and Cajun-style barbecue seasonings. But we’re always pulling it back into Tex-Mex with cilantro, lime and queso fresco.”
Flores fondly recalled the open-armed welcome she received from Chef Zelina Rodriguez of Galley Bistro when first arriving in the local food scene—now, having reached a new level of success, the sisters would like to do the same.
Inside their space, a mural by local artist Bella “Maple” Espinoza serves as a backdrop for customers eating in. A dessert case holding sweet bread from Melissa Martinez’s Something Baked sits front and center by the ordering counter. Much like those who helped them climb, Flores and Lozano don’t plan on pulling the ladder up behind them.
