Two Colorado-born sisters have made their dreams come true with the opening of a restaurant that blends a bit of the south with the flare of the Rocky Mountains.

Julie Beydler and Jen Goecke recently opened Papaya’s Kitchen and Catering in Hooks.

“This has been a dream in the making for years and years and years,” Beydler said. “We decided to come to Hooks because there’s obviously a lot of people that need fed and not a lot of places to eat.”

Papaya’s is open at 203 East Avenue A in Hooks. Their operating hours are 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Beydler works the front and Goecke takes the helm in the kitchen.

On the menu, diners will find a little something for every taste.

“It’s definitely homestyle, and a lot of it is southern. We tried to do the best of both worlds. We brought a little bit of Colorado with us, too. There’s some definite staples from Colorado that we thought, ‘This might go over okay down here.’ And they caught on,” Goecke said.

One such Colorado staple is their Rocky Mountain Oysters.

“Finding it here, you would think with as many bulls around, there would be an abundance,” Goecke laughed.

Beydler agreed and said they owe a huge shoutout to East Texas Meat Slingers in Atlanta, Texas, for “coming in clutch” and providing them with the cowboy delicacy.

They want their diners to have a great experience while watching the clock and their wallets.

“Our goal is to make it relatively quickly, but look and taste delicious, and get you out the door in an acceptable amount of time for lunch at a good price,” Beydler said.

The sisters say they want to have a little something for everyone on their menu. But they say their menu is ever revolving.

“We look at what works, what does not, what do people love, what do people want. We do our best to accommodate anybody and everybody,” Goecke said.

And they also offer options for the health-conscious or people with dietary restrictions.

“There’s no shortage of options for carb-free, keto, paleo, pescatarian, vegetar- ian, you name it,” Goecke added. “If you have literally no dietary guidelines, I’ve got you. Or if you have all the dietary guidelines, I’ve also got you.”

The duo hail from Colorado and have worked in the restaurant industry since their teenage years, usually together.

“(Jen) started working in a restaurant when she was 13. And then she got a job at a restaurant and they needed a hostess. She said, ‘Hey, why don’t you come be a hostess?’ when I was 16-yearsold. That was my first real job in a restaurant and we basically never left … So restaurant life has been our life for as long as we can remember. Our mom was a server before we were even born, so we grew up in a restaurant,” Beyeler said.

Eight years ago, Beydler and her husband moved their family to Redwater and five years later, Goecke and her family followed. Six months ago, their parents also made the move The sisters say they are not only family, but they are best friends.

Getting the business open was a family affair. Their father spent three months completely renovating the building to allow the sisters to open in December.

“When we thought about what we were going to name it, I said we had to give a shout out to our mom and dad,” Goecke said.

“We called it Papaya’s because our dad is Papa and our mom is Aya. So when you mush it together it’s Papaya,” Beydler added.

Making the move to the unknown for them made them realize how important it was to make their guests feel at home in their restaurant.

“Obviously we take a lot of pride in our food, but service, to us born and raised in the industry and this is all we’ve ever done, it is a dying breed finding phenomenal service and somewhere you’re comfortable going everyday or once a week. And if we can be that place, that’s what we want to be. We want to create a little home away from home,” Goecke said.

“I know lots of people who don’t have a home away from home. Come on in, we’ll love you, I promise.”

The sisters say they keep their hours to breakfast and lunch so they can accommodate their hectic family schedules. But have future plans to expand their business “I look forward to where this is going because this is just the beginning and it’s very exciting right now. But there’s no limit to how far this is going to go,” Goecke said.