PAUL SQUIRE PHOTO | (L-R) Maribel and Gabriella Martinez, owner and chef at Cinco De Mayo restaurant, hold up mole poblano, one of the new restaurant’s most popular dishes.
The idea for Cinco de Mayo began last December, when Maribel Martinez and her uncle were driving past a vacant building on Middle Country Road in Calverton.
“He looked at this place and said ‘Oh I think it’s for rent,” Ms. Martinez recalled. “So I said ‘Let’s go look at it.'”
Nine months later, Ms. Martinez and her uncle, Refugio Iglesias, have opened their first restaurant, a Mexican-American eatery at the intersection of Route 25 and Edwards Avenue. The building used to house the Village Crossroads restaurant.
The new restaurant opened the day before Thanksgiving and business so far has been good, Ms. Martinez said Monday.
“It’s been busier than we thought it would be,” she said.
The restaurant serves Mexican-American cuisine, including burritos and frittatas with tomato and shallot. The taco menu ranges from chicken and beef to more exotic offerings such as pork ear and beef tongue.
The menu also includes fresh juices like papaya, orange, peach, pineapple and watermelon. Mr. Iglesias’s wife, Gabriella Martinez, also serves as a chef.
Cinco de Mayo offers breakfast, lunch and dinner and is open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Read more in the Nov. 29 News-Review newspaper.