Sumera Shaheen and her husband Qadin Siddiqui are Brownsville residents – for now – but their business interests have a decidedly Mid-Valley and Mercedes tilt.

Quadin owns the Q&A Food Mart on north Vermont Avenue in Mercedes to go with two stores by the same name in Brownsville and Monte Alto, respectively. Sumera last November opened the Café Nashta Family Restaurant in Mercedes with the support of her husband. The Mercedes restaurant is one of the few Pakistani and Indian food restaurants in the Rio Grande Valley and is located at the East Mercedes Plaza along Expressway 83.

Sumera immigrated from Pakistan two years ago, joining her husband who has lived in this area since 2013. A look around the region gave Sumera the idea of opening a Pakistani-themed restaurant since she saw so few of them in the Valley. Quadin’s recommended his wife take a good look at Mercedes as the best spot to open a restaurant.

“You can look in McAllen, Brownsville or Harlingen, but if you’re in Mercedes near the main highway, you’re in the middle of the Valley,’’ Quadin said he told his wife. “There’s no better place than Mercedes.’’

Sumera was already inclined to choose Mercedes. After six months in business, she knows they made the right choice.

“It’s growing here,’’ she said of the retail and business developments seen in Mercedes in recent years. “This city will be a famous place with the growth of the Valley coming here.’’

A New Exprience

The flavor of Café Nashta is right by the front door with a large poster touting “Paki-Mex Breakfast.’’

It’s a concept Sumera offers where customers can choose to take a traditional Mexican dish like carne guisada and infuse it with some of the Pakistani spices that are mainstays in many of the café’s main menu. It’s the sort of fusion menu which has become popular in the restaurant industry and combines elements from different culinary backgrounds to create dishes that blend diverse flavors and ingredients.

It’s the more traditional Pakistani/Indian menu, however, that primarily attracts diners from across the Valley. The region includes a good many doctors and other medical professionals from Pakistan and India who are happy to finally have a RGV restaurant that features dishes from their home countries. Those dishes include white chicken Karahi and green chicken curry, along with another customer favorite, butter chicken.

A popular Café Nashta dish like Chicken Karahi, for example, originates from a northwest province in Pakistan, and brings an authenticity from that part of the world to the Valley. It is not only transplanted Pakistanis and Indians who are drawn to the ethnic dishes found at Café Nashta. Sumera says Mexican nationals visiting the nearly Rio Grande Valley Premium Outlets mall enjoy the experience of trying Pakistani dishes, as do local residents.

“It’s very much a new experience for some of our customers,’’ she said of the Pakistani/Indian dishes of her restaurant. “We found the people here and our Mexican to be very supportive and appreciative of our food.’’

The success of the restaurant along with her husband’s businesses in Hidalgo County has the couple thinking seriously of relocating their RGV home base to the Mid-Valley. Wherever they live locally, Sumera is happy to finally have arrived in the United States after a lengthy immigration process to gain her visa. A large poster of the Statute of Liberty is hung up on the restaurant’s main eastside wall.

“It is beautiful here,’’ she said, looking over to the poster. “This is America, the land of opportunity.’’

Café Nashta is located at 7013 E. Expressway 83, Suite A, in Mercedes, and its main business number is (956) 634-0004.

• Ric Cavazos