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Get a taste of the heart and soul of Ramallah at Astoria’s King of Falafel and Shawarma
Latest Small Biz Spotlight
Tastes like Peru: How a business grew from an immigrant’s viral TikTok
How one bilingual bookstore bridges culture and community in Bushwick
Hidden juice bar at the George Washington Bridge is your tropical escape for smoothies, sandwiches and smiles
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Discover the heritage-infused tacos revolutionizing Queens’ food scene
Fernando Ruiz grew up visiting family on Mexico’s eastern coast nearly every summer. It was important to his mother that he embrace his heritage. At the schools he attended throughout New York — whether Brooklyn Heights, the Upper West Side, East New York, or Bensonhurst (the family moved a lot) — Ruiz was often the…
Meet the Bronx beautician who is shaping the future of lashes
Paola Brito loves being a business owner but admits this wasn’t in her plans. “I didn’t have the typical business startup story,” says Brito, a 25-year-old Dominican woman born and raised in the Bronx. “I actually didn’t have this in mind for myself at all just because I know how hard it is to start…
The club helping Black and Latina girls and women design their own sneakers
On a Thursday evening in May, the corner room at the East Elmhurst Community Library was filled with Pumas and Nikes — blank canvases, or partly painted ones. Their designers: Latinas who took adult English classes for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) at the library, as well as their daughters and nieces, Black female artists,…
Meet the esthetician who went from doing beauty services on her front stoop to running her own business
When Shondrea Harrod was growing up in Long Island, she was always plucking friends’ facial hair and giving them shoulder massages. They were “pro bono” clients on her front stoop or at the park. She also gave her grandmother regular back rubs to help release any knots in her back. And now, after training in…
The Black-owned business using tea to spread Caribbean nutrition to other communities
Cherie Conliffe grew up in Brooklyn’s Brownsville area surrounded by corner stores stuffed with junk food. It was hard to even find her family’s traditional West Indian foods outside her household. It boggled her that no one was really speaking about Brownsville being a food desert. When Conliffe began learning about the link between junk…
Keeping a Mexican kitchen authentic in Hell’s Kitchen
Tulcingo de Valle is still recovering from the Cinco de Mayo madness. A true family-run business, the Hell’s Kitchen staple needed help from the owners’ daughter, Yesenia Verdejo, who flew in from Houston, Texas on their busiest day of the year. As it did every May 5, the restaurant and deli saw more than its…
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