Mr. Natural – A Family Affair

At family-owned Mr. Natural, every day the Mendozas spend running the health food store, restaurant, and bakery is a labor of love – for the business and each other.

Since Mr. Natural opened on Cesar Chavez in 1988, the bakery and health food store – and later the full-service restaurant – has been a family affair. Jesus Mendoza, Mr. Natural himself, and wife Maria Mendoza would run the businesses while their three children – Luisa, Jesus Jr., and Jose – helped out around the store. They’d bus tables, clean windows, and greet customers while Mom and Dad manned the counter or ordered supplies. The kids would do homework in the dining room and help out wherever they could as their father taught them how to work hard and work together, to be unafraid to get their hands dirty.

“What was soap invented for?” Jesus Jr. recalls hearing throughout his childhood. Even now, “He’s always teaching me something new.”

But it wasn’t all work and no play.

They’d invite friends over to chat on the patio or play games in the office, and there was always plenty of food around. Birthdays meant indulging in unique new cakes the bakery was testing before adding them to the menu and their photo albums are filled with snapshots of cherished memories, like Jose attempting to cram oversized burgers into his tiny mouth.

All the while, the young trio was learning the business side of running a restaurant and bakery. Luisa discovered she loved to bake and had an eye for cake decorating. All three learned about natural health and wellness remedies, and how to make tamales and tortillas in the kitchen. Most importantly, their father taught them how to work together as a family.

“Working together provides a support group for us all,” Jesus Jr. said.

That includes when not everyone agrees on how to run the kitchen or manage the business. “He taught us how to work together, even when we don’t get along,” Luisa said. “That helps in life, too.”

That togetherness and support hardly ends at the threshold of the established East Austin business. According to the kids – all grown and working full-time at one or both of the Austin locations – they rarely get tired of being together.

“We have that bond outside of work, too,” Luisa said.

They go to the movies, team up for community outreach projects, and enjoy meals together, a cherished time for Maria and Jesus made happier, whose joy in feeding people may only be rivaled by the pride they feel in their children. “My love and my confidence is completely with them,” Jesus says. “I trust them with everything.”

Luisa, Jesus Jr., and Jose have chosen to follow in their parents' footsteps, carrying on the family legacy. As the trio takes the helm, and a whole new generation of children have begun their own training, Mr. Natural now boasts now three generations working under one roof.

It’s safe to say that this Father’s Day, the Mendoza family will be celebrating together. And it will probably involve cake.