By Mark Woolsey

Jesus Lagunas grew up in metro Atlanta but sometimes his culinary preferences were thousands of miles away.

The 30-year-old relished the home cooking that his mother would prepare, and which came out of her hometown in the southern Mexican state of Michoacán.

Starting work in his uncle’s Tex-Mex eatery at the age of 13, Lagunas quickly became hooked on his surroundings and the work itself.

“I realized I wanted to open a restaurant the first time I set foot in a restaurant,” he said.

Other stints in his family’s Tex-Mex outposts in the Cobb area followed as he worked his way up from busboy to server and beyond. He honed his bartending knowledge and skills at a craft cocktail bar in Smyrna.

Lagunas and wife Liz Murillo had inaugurated a catering business last year, but when a good location on Veterans Memorial Highway in Austell came along, they took a leap of faith, confident that their relative youth and passion for food preparation and service would carry them through.

They clearly envisioned their menu, including a bar selection with craft cocktails.

“I felt Tex -Mex had been overdone,” Lagunas said. “If you’ve been to one Tex-Mex restaurant, you’ve been to them all.”

That means that the couple’s  Luna Y Sol Cantina, which had its grand opening this past weekend, doesn’t offer much of the standard Tex-Mex playlist, such as burritos, fajitas and nachos.

Instead you’ll find tortas, traditional sandwiches featuring a protein, fresh lettuce, beans, onions, tomatoes and jalapenos on bolillo bread, similar to a French roll, said the restaurateur. There are Michoacán-style enchiladas served with juicy top sirloin and sided by potatoes and carrots.

Protein choices are respectable, including steak, carnitas, al pastor and barbacoa.

“Another thing that sets us apart is our sopa tarasca,” said Lagunas. It’s a creamy soup consisting of pinto beans, garlic, tomatoes and ancho chilis, topped with a crema, queso fresco, avocado and tortilla strips.

On a more familiar note, Lagunas explained that they do they have tacos. with in-house-made tortillas and spices different from those of standard-issue Tex Mex, prepared to order. All of which he says, has people coming through the door with queries about the menu  while others wonder about the actual name of the modest-sized establishment that features a central bar, a patio in the front, about two dozen tables and a nook for semi-private and reserved dining.

Luna Y Sol (the moon  and sun )“symbolizes back to our Aztec days of worshipping the sun god and stuff like that,” said Lagunas. “Honestly, if you grew up in a Mexican household, a Hispanic household, you saw the sun and moon somewhere in your house, ” he said. It could be shown through pictures, pottery, or other media.

The cultural concept also speaks to duality and opposites, such as a husband and wife.

Lagunas said they’ll be operating on a more limited menu for the next week or two before expanding, to give the kitchen time to find its footing. Down the road he says they are planning to add seafood dishes from wife Murillo’s coastal home state of Mazatlan.

The fledgling restaurant operator explained that Luna Y Sol took over the space of a former Tex-Mex restaurant and they did an extensive renovation. He said the prior operators didn’t really work to create a family atmosphere. That’s changed, he added.

“We would love to have as many families in here as possible.” Lagunas said.

Visit Luna y Sol Cantina’s Facebook page by following this link.