By Adam Pincus
Orlando Valencia, 45, and his wife Ruby sell Colombian specialties in a 60-seat restaurant called Xtasis Mega Hamburguesa, at 82-12 Northern Blvd.They came to Queens in 1989 from Colombia and began selling corn cakes and grilled meat from a pushcart in Jackson Heights at Roosevelt Avenue and 84th Street.Now 17 years later, they are serving their homey dishes at the restaurant recently expanded from a modest storefront at the same location that they opened in 2001.”For five years we were small. Eight or nine people filled the restaurant,” Valencia said. “Then in August 2006, we enlarged our business and now we can seat 60 or 70 people.”The couple hit the streets in 1989, capitalizing on Valencia's family's experience as street vendors of hamburgers in their native Colombia. On Roosevelt Avenue and 84th Street in Jackson Heights, they built a customer base and after 12 grueling years they opened Xtasis.The restaurant serves fast food fare from Colombia such as hamburgers, hotdogs, fried plantains and shish kebabs. They also offer a Colombian blended fruit drink called a cholada, one of their most popular items in the summer. The seven secret sauces, made up from recipes that include garlic, tomatoes, carrots, honey, mustard, catsup and mayonnaise, are a signature addition to their stacked burgers that often come with potato chips and grilled onions. The startling interior design grabs the attention from those driving or walking by, although it fit into a broader style evolving on the boulevard in Jackson Heights.Valencia's 26-year-old daughter, Johana Pinzon, said it is no longer just her countrymen eating there.”First it was just Colombian people, but little by little word got around. Now it is also people from here, Russians, Chinese.”Pinzon said she noticed a trend over the past several months with about a half-dozen restaurants opening up or rehabilitating their store front, such as Pio Pio and Mazorca, using visual style similar to theirs with very large windows giving passers by a look at the clean lines of the interior design.The successes have not come without hardships. Valencia said his wife is now suffering from asthma and arthritis. “The consequences of working outside” 14 hours a day all days of the week in the heat, cold, rain and snow, he said.
