A brunch spot on East Stacy Road serves hollandaise spiked with guascas, a Colombian herb, and its walls display a hand-woven silhouette of Colombia assembled from baskets the owners crafted themselves.
Leo and Kelly Vargas, Bogotá natives who live in Allen, opened Curuba Café at 1546 E. Stacy Rd., Suite 195, in the Lost Creek Village shopping center in April 2025. Kelly Vargas runs the kitchen; Leo handles the front of house.
The café was described as Allen's first Colombian restaurant when it opened, according to a Dallas Morning News profile published at the time.
"Our menu is inspired by Colombian flavors, because that is what we love to eat, but we also make it approachable for different cultures that come to the restaurant," Kelly Vargas told Community Impact in a Thursday, Aug. 6, profile. "... I would say it is Latin American fusion."
The top-selling category is eggs Benedict, where Kelly adds guascas to the hollandaise sauce. Other best sellers include the arepa ranchera, a large cornbread-based flatbread loaded with two eggs, beans, chorizo, mozzarella, fresh guacamole, breakfast potatoes and pickled onions, and the Caribbean pancakes with caramelized sweet plantains, coconut cream, panela-rum syrup and toasted coconut.
The pancakes weren't always on the menu. Leo Vargas said Kelly started making them as off-menu specials for regulars who kept requesting them, and demand made the addition permanent.
Traditional Colombian plates round out the offerings: empanadas and bandeja paisa, a platter of red beans, rice, steak, pork belly, chorizo, a fried egg, arepita, sweet plantains and guacamole. The restaurant cooks everything from scratch with organic ingredients and no MSG, according to the Dallas Morning News profile.
The drink menu features single-origin Colombian coffee, smoothies, a coconut-lime Coco Lemonade, sangria, mimosa flights and Bloody Marys.
The name itself is a nod to home. Curuba is a Colombian passionfruit and one of Leo's favorites. He said the couple chose it so fellow Colombians would recognize the restaurant's roots immediately.
Inside, yellow butterflies reference Gabriel García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," and the large wall silhouette of Colombia is assembled from hand-woven baskets the couple made together. The restaurant had just six tables when it opened, according to the Dallas Morning News, and the intimate space occupies a former mochi doughnut shop.
Curuba Café is open Tuesday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and closed Mondays. Leo Vargas has said his goal is to grow the business and expand to additional D-FW locations, though no timeline or second site has been announced.
