When Mariel Street opened Liberty Burger on Forest Lane last November, she took a different approach to building burgers -- specifically different from the burgers served at her brother's spot Snookies. Street is a hippie at heart and instead of traditional greasy burgers and fries, she wanted a burger with a principles. Her restaurant's ethos includes, "food quality, social contribution and environmental responsibility."

Her brothers Gene Jr. and Dace Street soon got on board with their little sister's concept, as did long-time family friend George Holwerda, who was the first employee at the Black Eyed Pea, one of her father's, Gene Street's, many restaurants (other spots include Good Eats, Cantina Laredo, Cool River and III Forks.)

Now they're putting the final touches on a second Liberty Burger at what used to be Snookies on Keller Springs Road, which will be a larger, full-service version replete with a bar and infused spirits.

Before Mariel decided to open her own restaurant, she studied linguistics and business at UT Austin (she's fluent in at least five languages), then did 27 months with the Peace Corps. Here's our chat about the quite interesting first 27-years of Mariel Street's life: