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After being closed for eight months, Mom\u2019s Cafe in Allen has reopened with an extensive menu featuring more than 110 American and Mexican dishes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Imelda Garcia\/Staff writer<\/p>\n
After being closed for eight months, Mom\u2019s Cafe in Allen<\/a> has reopened with an extensive menu featuring more than 110 American and Mexican dishes.\u00a0<\/p>\n The restaurant, which had been a beloved Allen staple for more than a decade, closed in November 2025. It was purchased by Gilbert Romero III and Rosana Khalifa, who reopened it on July 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n Romero, an Oak Cliff native, also owns Mom\u2019s Cafe in Carrollton<\/a>. He bought that restaurant a little more than three years ago, although it has been serving the community for more than 30 years. Despite sharing the same name, the two restaurants are mostly independent of each other \u2014 the name is simply a coincidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n When Romero learned the Allen Mom’s Cafe was available, he decided it was the right opportunity to open a second restaurant. The shared name seemed almost like fate.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw this location was available and thought it was a great opportunity,\u201d Romero told The News. \u201cWe want to be here for a long time and become part of the Allen community.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Mom’s Cafe, which had been a beloved Allen staple for more than a decade, closed in November 2025. It was purchased by Gilbert\u00a0Romero III and Rosana Khalifa, who reopened it on July 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n Imelda Garcia\/Staff writer<\/p>\n Khalifa, who is originally from Monterrey<\/a>, Mexico, led the redesign and decoration of the restaurant while also contributing her recipe for traditional Mexican caf\u00e9 de olla. Romero focused on developing the menu and overseeing the restaurant\u2019s operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe brought over the Carrollton menu because it has already proven successful, but we also kept a few dishes that people expected to find here,\u201d Romero said. \u201cWe just made a few adjustments to make them our own.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The restaurant\u2019s philosophy centers on using fresh ingredients and preparing everything from scratch. Its burgers, for example, are hand-formed in-house, cooked to order, and follow the motto: \u201cFresh, never frozen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The menu features classic American breakfast favorites such as pancakes, eggs Benedict and omelets, alongside Mexican dishes including chilaquiles, migas, huevos rancheros and machaca<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n The fried catfish is one of the restaurant’s signature dishes. Mom’s Cafe also serves pancakes and other American and Mexican breakfast dishes.<\/p>\n Imelda Garcia\/Staff writer<\/p>\n Among the restaurant\u2019s signature dishes are the Crab Cake Benedict and the Fish Benedict, both seafood twists on the traditional breakfast favorite. Another standout is the fried catfish, which is offered every Friday for $9.99 instead of its regular price of $15.49.\u00a0<\/p>\n Looking ahead, the owners also plan to introduce traditional Mexican weekend specials such as pozole<\/a>, menudo<\/a>\u00a0and tamales<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Mom\u2019s recipes\u00a0<\/p>\n Romero\u2019s path into the restaurant business was anything but conventional. Before becoming a restaurateur, he spent 15 years working in the mortgage industry. After losing his job, he decided it was finally time to pursue a dream he had held since he was a teenager.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI always wanted to own a restaurant,\u201d Romero said. \u201cWhen I got laid off, I thought, \u2018If God is calling me to do this, this is the time.\u2019 It\u2019s been a huge learning curve, but my financial background has helped me tremendously with running the business.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Gilbert Romero III is the co-owner of Mom’s Cafe in Allen. He and his business partner, Rosana Khalifa, reopened the restaurant on July 3, 2026.<\/p>\n Imelda Garcia\/Staff writer<\/p>\n His passion for cooking began in childhood. At age 12, his mother taught him how to cook dinner, while his father introduced him to grilling, something he still enjoys today.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s funny that it\u2019s called Mom\u2019s Cafe because, in the end, many of the recipes are my mom\u2019s, and she still helps me here,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cIt was never planned that way, but it turned out to be very fitting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Romero also takes pride in his heritage. He is the grandson of migrant farmworkers and the third generation of a Mexican American family in the United States. For him, owning restaurants represents the culmination of generations of hard work.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mom\u2019s Cafe is located at 602 E. Main St. in Allen and it’s open daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After being closed for eight months, Mom\u2019s Cafe in Allen has reopened with an extensive menu featuring more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161,94256,96857,91781,89307],"class_list":["post-388807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-tp-allen","tag-tp-breakfast","tag-tp-mexican-food","tag-tp-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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