Photo by Danny Fulgencio

Angela Alexander says business is steady since coronavirus forced the world to stay inside.

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Her West Dallas business, Da Munchies, is a takeout restaurant anyway, so the stay-at-home orders weren’t a huge interruption. “I can’t say it’s hurting me really bad,” she says. “It might be pinching a little bit, but it’s not hurting.”

In fact, some new customers have discovered the restaurant since stay-at-home orders started, she says.

Da Munchies specializes in comfort food like mozzarella cheese sticks, jalapeño poppers and fried chicken. What’s different here is that everything on the menu is vegan, meaning it doesn’t contain meat, eggs or dairy.

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“I don’t want to eat healthy every day. Isn’t there any comfort food or junk food?”

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Alexander originally started Da Munchies as a comfort-food place with meat and everything. But her sister, Elizabeth Bookman, has been vegan for years.

“She took me out to a couple of places to eat,” Alexander says. “And I was like, ‘I don’t want to eat healthy every day. Isn’t there any comfort food or junk food?’”

Bookman, who went on to open Vegan Food House on Seventh and Tyler, helped Alexander develop vegan recipes based on her own specialties. She turned the place into a vegan-only restaurant, and the niche concept took off.

Popular menu items include the Philly roll, jackfruit tacos, the Popeyes chicken sandwich and plates, such as chicken fried chicken or oxtails. There’s also vegan chips and queso and vegan banana pudding, cakes and pies.

DID YOU KNOW?

Da Munchies is offering a $5 meal for seniors during the stay-at-home orders.

Da Munchies has its own delivery drivers, who charge $10 for local delivery and $20 for places as far away as Lewisville and Midlothian.

The restaurant went vegan about two years ago, but Alexander herself made the switch a few months ago. She and a friend challenged each other to stop eating meat for 30 days earlier this year, and Alexander stretched it to 45 days and then kept going.

She says she’s lost weight and has noticed improvement in her overall health since the change. “I had to slowly come off the cheese,” she says. “The hardest part was the cheese. I just had to find the vegan cheeses that I like.”

Da Munchies

4121 N. Westmoreland Road

Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, closed Sunday-Tuesday

214.484.8811

damunchiesdfw.com

Photo by Danny Fulgencio