Local restaurant owner Edgar Delfin, exploded with excitement when he saw a notification from a representative from the television channel Food Network. His restaurant, Lick It Up, had been selected to appear on the Food Network’s show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives hosted by celebrity chef Guy Fieri. He pulled over, parked, and honked his horn multiple times in excitement and yelled “Fuck yea!”
The country was about to find out all about Lick It Up and Delfin’s vision to rewrite the standard of Mexican food.
Delfin was heavily influenced by growing up in a border town (El Paso/Juárez), and that eventually reflected his vision of Lick It Up. He began selling tacos in February of 2017 our of a food truck in the patio of Monarch bar, with only one vegan taco on the menu. “We capitalized on the vegan clientele slowly, added more options and then we went full vegan,” Delfin said. “Over the last years, it was the growth that led to the move. We went from a staff of 3, to 8.”
On August 2, 2019, Lick It Up had their grand opening of their new brick and mortar at 114 E Mills Ave, inside of local bar International. The growing process began long before the decision to make the move. “As soon as Vice Munchies interviewed us at our food truck, we got so many people who wanted to check us out, people even traveled to us.” Vegan restaurants began to pop up on the border region, but what managed to set Lick It Up apart from other vegan options was keeping vegan intertwined into a Mexican dish.
Border culture is a staple of El Paso, and Juárez nightlife was a part of it. Crossing over and back was a norm for Delfin, “I loved the whole experience of going to Juárez, partying and then going to a gordita or taco stand at the end of the night! Part of the experience of going out was going out to eat at the taco stands with your friends.”
“I started eating vegan and I wanted a vegan Mexican menu, but the response I was getting was, that it was an insult to Mexican culture,” like Delfin, it is common for many Mexican-American restaurants on the border to have a Mexican dish with an option of poultry. “I know it sounds simple, but I was vegan and just wanted to make vegan food! I asked my business partner at the time, he gave the go-ahead, and we went for it.” Lick It Up then blew up.
Delfin continued to repeatedly honk his horn as he took in a new chapter of Lick It Up’s success, “ It was a challenge to go completely vegan.” Delfin wanted to prove that he could make traditional Mexican plates without beef. One of his many challenges was taking a common Mexican dish, Milanesa, which is a breaded meat fillet and turning it 100% vegan, “I looked everywhere for a vegan Milanesa recipe and couldn’t find one! I am sure we were not the first one to come up with it, but we did it!”
Lick It Up has successfully captured El Paso’s Mexican-American essence even going against all odds by keeping Delfin’s unique decision to go vegan, “I was never a manager, a boss, a sous chef, and there were a lot of up and downs.” Delfin began to explain, “It’s exciting to successfully represent Mexican food in a completely different way. We took El Paso and Juárez culture together with vegan perspective and brought visibility to the borderland.”