Mi restaurante es su restaurante

Customers are not just from Kingston. They come from Catskill, Saugerties, Cairo, Athens, Red Hook, Mount Tremper, Phoenicia and beyond. Zapata thinks it’s not just the food that attracts them but also the opportunity to congregate with fellow Mexican natives. “Really, Kingston is a city, and yes, many have family here,” she said. “But they will come here and wire money home to our country, cash their checks, go to the laundromat, shop at Mexican grocery stores. They can’t do all that where they live.”

If a drive down Broadway has you wondering exactly where the Hispanic community is, a Paisano’s customer, George, explained that it is “all over.” Members of the Kingston Hispanic community, often unseen and unnoticed except in the background or quickly bustling down Broadway, seem invisible to many. They are often in the kitchens washing our restaurant dishes and chopping vegetables; hunched over their tools on a construction work site, pushing an appliance cart in the hospital or schlepping giant rocks across a lawn. “They are working two to three jobs with twelve-hour shifts,” Zapata and George agreed.

Zapata said that Kingston has a heavy concentration of folks from the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Puebla who mostly attend Saint Peter’s church. The immigrants are scattered around midtown, not all living as one community in one or two specific neighborhoods, as is typical in Newburgh or Jersey City. Three times a year you might get to see a religious ceremony of Mexicans walking in the streets.

In addition to the obvious language barrier, Kingston’s Hispanic community also suffers from the limited transportation. Those who don’t have documentation lack the ability to secure conventional credit cards or even open checking accounts. They deal in cash and often have pre-paid cell phones and credit cards.

Paisano’s wants to offer an environment in which people relax, enjoy, relate and connect, said Zapata. In the bright, sunny second dining room are two pool tables. The restaurant will be open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. It will serve breakfast through dinner.

Salvadorian restaurant “Pupuseria” restaurant Mi Ranchito, which has been at 614 Broadway for twelve years, advertises “typical Salvadorian and Hispanic food offered in familiar atmosphere.” A pupusa is like a corn tortilla, only thicker, so it is not rolled like a tortilla. It is served with beans, meat, cheese or any combination of all three. According to owner’s daughter and waitress Elena Herrera, many customers are from midtown, but many also from Catskill and Saugerties, and are mostly natives of Mexico, Guatemala or El Salvador. Sitting at the bar means watching Univision network in Spanish on the TV while listening to Latin music overhead, while enjoying a Modelo, Corona or a michelada drink– a beer served with added hot sauce.

Herrera said the pupusas are the most common food ordered, such as the sweet plantain with cream or sweet corn tamale with cream. The Salvadorian-style beef soup is a close second.

Herrera grew up in Kingston and attended Kingston High School. She said her family moved to Kingston from Washington Heights to open the restaurant, which she described as being one of the first, if not the very first, Latin-American restaurants in the area. Herrera agreed with Zapata that if most of the community is invisible, it’s because they are busy working twelve-hour shifts.

Mi Casita restaurant at 720 Broadway opened several months ago, offering Guatemalan, Salvadorian and Mexican foods. The difference between Salvadorian, Guatemalan and Mexican may seem slight, the difference between Salvadorian and Guatemalan only in recipes and dish preparations. Though very similar to both, Mexican food is typically spicier with heat, commonly using peppers, chipotle, jalapenos. Cecilia Acevedo of El Salvador, behind the counter, politely takes the menu orders from Latinos speaking with various accents from their native dialects, and dressed in everything ranging from yellow safety vests to dress slacks and a tie. In addition to the usual construction workers and landscapers eating early-morning breakfasts, Acevedo reports that the restaurant also sees regular business from doctor’s offices, the hospitals, insurance offices and professional buildings.

The restaurant is open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. The menu has color photos with accompanying dish description of each dish offering a meat choice usually among pork, beef, chicken or beef tongue, and specially demarcates Mexican meals. Pupusas are only $1.50 each, and are offered stuffed with cheese, pork, beans with cheese or chayote (a gourd with a flavor as a cross between cucumber and potato). Mi Casita’s menu offers breakfast egg dishes little heard of in Greek diners, such as the huevos rancheros, sunnyside-up eggs with a light, sweet salsa, breaded and fried plantain, a slice of avocado, mashed beans and thick cream on the side.

If next month you see smoke coming from the rooftop of the former restaurant simply named Central American on Broadway across from Ulster Performing Arts Center, walk in that direction. Darwin Lemus and Felix Mazariego are currently priming and painting the large, modern space in preparation of their upcoming El Rey Del Pollo (The King of Chicken) chain Latin-American rotisserie chicken restaurant. Mazariego owns two other El Rey Del Pollo locations in Nyack and Spring Valley. Lemus said that they will be open seven days a week serving mostly chicken and ribs for lunch and dinner.

Though Lemus is largely unfamiliar with Kingston, not even aware that the neighboring UPAC is a large theatre, he is optimistic. “They say Kingston is a nice place,” he said. “A nice area. Business is good. Let’s see what happens.” He hopes his strictly Latin-American menu will appeal to “anybody.” Though nervous about giving definitive answers to questions about his restaurant plans, he did say El Rey Del Pollo will be open by the beginning of December.