The Urbina family has sold the traditional Latin American savory pastries known as pasteles since 2002 in Venezuela. However, Marlon Urbina said he researched sites all over Texas before opening the state’s first Pastel Gourmet location on Cypresswood Drive in Spring almost two years ago.

“People are open to trying new things here,” Urbina said.

A warm sense of community, openness to new flavors and the presence of other Venezuelan families drawn to the area by the oil and gas industry made Spring an ideal location for a small specialty restaurant, he said.

Pastel Gourmet has 15 locations in Venezuela and one in Miami. Ingredients are prepared at the family’s Florida facility, where his mother-in-law does the cooking.

Venezuelan flavors provide a complex sensory experience combining taste and smell, but they are not overly spicy, Urbina said.

“The thing you will taste is that it is not spicy, but very well-seasoned,” Urbina said. “[You] will experience a mixture of seasoning, herbs, different aromas, all together.”

Breakfast items are the shop’s main focus, with a variety of stuffed items such as empanadas, pasteles and puff pastries.

Pasteles are made of wheat flour, while empanadas are made of corn flour. Both are filled with ingredients ranging from eggs and cheese for breakfast items to beef, chicken or mushrooms for lunch.

Pastel Gourmet also sells several kinds of lasagna, including beef lasagna with fried plantains, which are a starchy member of the banana family.

The store also offers iced lemonade made with raw sugar and a passion fruit drink. Cakes and traditional Venezuelan desserts, such as a green papaya dish cooked in raw sugar, are also available. Homemade antipasto—preserved vegetables—is also sold in jars for customers to take home.

Urbina said the restaurant will sell both precooked and raw frozen items by the end of the year as well as an expanded, refrigerated dessert line.

Pastel Gourmet is open on Christmas and New Year’s Day and accepts early orders for holidays.

Urbina said he is encouraged by the warm reception the restaurant has had in the community and hopes to open an additional location in the Greater Houston area soon.

“Now it has become more than a business,” Urbina said. “It has become a way to reach out to people, in a different way. I have made friends—it is a whole new experience.”