Reynosa restaurant turns family mole recipe into global business

Momole may have started in a kitchen in Reynosa, but it didn’t stop there. 

What began as a small restaurant in Reynosa and expanded into the U.S. and is now manufacturing and shipping its product across the world.

Momole, which produces and serves about a dozen artisanal mole products, opened its first restaurant in Reynosa in 2019. 

Last year, it entered the U.S. market with a restaurant in McAllen and began shipping its product to international markets, including Dubai, China, Denmark, London and Canada.

The company has grown from a three-person operation that made mole for restaurant-goers to one that supports 10 jobs in Reynosa and McAllen and sells its mole to other businesses. 

But getting there took two years of permits, legal work and preparation.

Much of that process was guided by the McAllen Economic Development Corporation, Momole co-founder Jocelyn Guerrero Enríquez told the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal. 

“Our message is clear: entrepreneurship without borders is possible,” Guerrero said. “But it requires hard work, formalization and surrounding yourself with the right partners.”

When Guerrero launched the brand with Gustavo Adolfo Gutiérrez Reyes in 2019, everything produced inside their Reynosa restaurant was done by hand.

After all, that’s how the original recipe was made — by hand-grinding ingredients on a metate, a flat volcanic stone used in traditional Mexican cooking.

“This project was born in my aunt’s kitchen with a metate and a family recipe,” Enríquez said. “Now we are operating in the United States and generating jobs.”

When the pandemic slowed business, the founders used the time to rethink their strategy.

“We decided to transform traditional mole into a modern, practical and exportable product,” Guerrero said. 

That shift led them to develop a dehydrated powdered version of the sauce — free of preservatives and certified for export. 

“We turned the crisis into a laboratory of ideas,” Guerrero said.

The company now produces about a dozen mole varieties, ranging from classic regional recipes to specialty blends.

“Momole’s success shows that Mexican companies can grow in the United States when they prepare and follow the formal process,” Susie Flores, vice president of business recruitment and retention at McAllen EDC, told the Journal.

The founders say the next step is expanding further in Texas and launching a franchise model later this year.