Yesterday’s New York Daily News featured the Dominican restaurant Mamajuana Cafe, stating that it is now expanding into a veritable empire. <\/p>\n
Mamajuana opened in 2006, when Victor Osorio and business partner Carlos Saint-Hilaire, both second-generation Dominicans raised in Washington Heights, bought the Umbrella lounge, a local nightclub that was one of the first opened in Inwood with the second-generation demographic in mind. They named the place after the famous Dominican drink in which rum and wine are steeped in a mixture of herbs, spices and tree bark. The drink is reputed to have an aphrodisiac effect and added a full menu as patrons demanded more substantial plates.<\/p>\n
Osorio, the numbers and legal guy to partner design and food guy Saint-Hilaire, said that the idea to expand outside the Heights was basic arithmetic. “For me, it was just putting two and two together,” said Osorio. “We started collecting people’s addresses and saw that a lot of people who were coming and waiting 45 minutes for a table were from outside the neighborhood and even out of town.”<\/p>\n
The Miami Mamajuana opened in 2008, and the one in Santo Domingo on Roberto Pastoriza Avenue a year later. All feature a similar decor, with a photo collage of Dominican street scenes, walls imitating colonial-style stonework and reproductions of pre-Columbian artwork.<\/p>\n
Last month, the owners of the popular restaurant and lounge on Dyckman St. opened a location on the upper West Side, at 570 Amsterdam Ave, their second in Manhattan. <\/p>\n
Victor Osorio, one of the two owners, says they want to put Mamajuana on the national map.<\/p>\n
“We’re also looking at Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas, big gastronomic centers in the country,” he told the Daily News. <\/p>\n
www.nydailynews.com\/latino\/dominican-dining-dynasty-expanding-article-1.1004137#ixzz1jKlCgOb4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday’s New York Daily News featured the Dominican restaurant Mamajuana Cafe, stating that it is now expanding into a veritable empire. Mamajuana opened in 2006, when Victor Osorio and business partner Carlos Saint-Hilaire, both second-generation Dominicans raised in Washington Heights, bought the Umbrella lounge, a local nightclub that was one of the first opened in … <\/p>\n