Center For Smiles, a dental practice in Bayside providing specialized dental care for families across Queens, distinguishes itself from other practices through its attention to detail and unconventional services that extend beyond dentistry.
Founded by Dr. Nicholas Rallis, who has almost 40 years of dental experience under his belt, the dental practice officially celebrated 35 years in business in June. Rallis has taught at NYU and currently teaches at the prestigious Dawson Academy in Florida.
The office, located at 209-20 35th Ave., provides routine and restorative dental services including cleanings, cavity fillings, root canals, tooth extractions and bone grafts, as well as cosmetic dental treatments such as teeth whitening, veneers, Invisalign and gum contouring.
For patients particularly nervous about dental procedures, the office brings in anesthesiologists for sedation upon patients’ requests.
However, the practice also provides skin care services through a unique, trademarked technology called CARE esthetics, which injects platelet-rich fibrin materials directly from a patient’s blood sample back into their skin through injection sites, similar to Botox. The preventative procedure, discovered by Dr. Richard Miron, treats collagen loss that causes wrinkles.
Center for Smiles is currently nominated for “Best Cosmetic Dentist” in the annual Bethpage Best of the Boro awards — a category the practice has dominated the past two years.
“Our goal is to treat every patient like family,” Rallis said. “When patients come here, we make them feel at home. We’re an open book, and we’re as transparent as possible so our patients know exactly what they get with us.”
Rallis said education is a key factor that helps the practice separate itself from other offices. He said his goal is for patients to make well-informed decisions about their care and understand how to prevent disease in the future.
The office currently serves about 2,000 families yearly, Rallis said, but he does not over-book appointments or have a quota each day for how many patients he must see. Instead, Rallis said his aim is to give each patient the time and attention needed to fully address their concerns and conduct procedures diligently.
“It’s an individualized plan for every patient,” he said.
Rallis attended NYU College of Dentistry, graduating three years before opening his own dental practice in Astoria in 1990. He eventually returned to NYU — this time as a teacher — and instructed a course only open to licensed dentists on full mouth reconstruction for 10 years.
Full mouth reconstruction, which Rallis said is one of their more popular services, can encompass a number of procedures that address multiple problems patients have regarding the appearance of their smile, as well as hygiene concerns. This includes medical procedures such as root canals, implants and cavity fillings, as well as cosmetic procedures such as Invisalign, teeth whitenings and veneers.
In 1993, Rallis opened a second practice in Bayside, eventually closing the Astoria office in 2000 to practice solely at the new office. In 2018, he began teaching at the Dawson Academy, a post-graduate educational and clinical research facility for dentists interested in learning new, cutting edge techniques and understanding underlying medical issues that impact dental hygiene and aesthetics.
“I believe I’ve been trained differently than other dentists,” Rallis said. “We don’t just deal with teeth — we deal with the whole head… Because of the way we are trained, I believe that we’re able to make dentistry last a lot longer and get to the root problem.”
According to Luisa Cardenas, the practice’s office manager, many of the patients seen at the office have bounced around from dentist-to-dentist and gotten incomplete care, or care that did not address the underlying problems they are experiencing.
“They tend to jump around when they’re not comfortable,” Cardenas said. “They’ll see one dentist and do a little work, and then another sometimes. They do that until they find a place like this where they do feel comfortable and say, ‘Okay. I want to do my whole mouth here and fix everything in one place.’”
For example, Cardenas said, the office treats temporomandibular joint disorder, abbreviated as TMD, which is the improper function of the joint responsible for jaw motion and bite alignment. Symptoms include pain and tenderness in the jaw, toothaches, headaches, clicking or cracking of the jaw, difficulty chewing and more.
“We educate our patients on their overall dental health, and I think it sets us apart,” Cardenas said. “Most of the time patients will say that in other cases, nobody spent time with them to educate them about TMD, or their overall health.”
And, Rallis explained, he never recommends a procedure that he would not agree to for himself or for his own family. He said he always tries to lean toward more conservative procedures, rather than dramatic procedures that shave away existing teeth such as veneers.
When Rallis met Dr. Richard Miron, who trademarked CARE esthetics in 2020, he began incorporating it into his array of services in 2022. The process was discovered by Miron while he was researching bone grafts for tooth extractions. He found that blood could be used not only for bone grafts, but the red and white blood cells could be separated and natural platelet-rich fibrin materials could be re-injected into the body as a preventative measure for collagen loss, reducing the appearance of wrinkles.
Cardenas said because the blood sample comes from the patient’s own body, and is not a foreign substance like the chemicals in Botox, the injection has no chance of being rejected from the patient’s body.
Aside from CARE esthetics, the office provides more cosmetic skin services such as micro-needling, laser treatments for skin and lips, laser facial hair removal and spider-vein removal. There is even a laser treatment that targets muscles in the back of the throat that tighten them and prevent snoring, trademarked as SnoreLase.
Cardenas, who’s been managing the practice for over four years, said the office is nothing like any other practices she’s worked at over the course of her 19-year career in the dental industry.
“Dr. Rallis is probably one of the most honest dentists I’ve ever worked with,” Cardenas said. “I think my biggest thing is patient education — educating them on their own bodies to make the best decision is probably the best reward for me because I’m helping someone understand what’s going on with their dental health.”
Cardenas recalled her parents, both immigrants, visiting doctors and getting procedures they didn’t understand when she was just a child. At 10-years-old, Cardenas said she would try to explain to her parents what medical procedures they were agreeing to.
Now, as an adult, Cardenas said she, and anyone else, should know exactly what is being done to their bodies so they can make educated decisions.
Cardenas said her cousin recently visited a doctor in Manhattan seeking veneers as a cosmetic solution to improving her smile. The office took impressions, Cardenas recalled, and her cousin was ready to go for her appointment.
However, Cardenas suggested she see Rallis in the office for a second opinion. Hesitant at first, Cardenas said, her cousin eventually visited the Bayside office. That’s when Rallis told her cousin that veneers were not needed to achieve her cosmetic goals of a better smile.
“She was like, ‘Are you kidding me? Does he not want my money?” Cardenas said, laughing. “Dr. Rallis let her know why he wouldn’t do it. His points were well proven.”
Rallis instead suggested Invisalign and recontouring her cousin’s gums, which her cousin agreed to. “I mean, she looks great now,” Cardenas said. “She’s super happy, and she didn’t need veneers!”
Maria Patilis has been visiting the office since she was about 8-years-old. Patilis is now 43 and has brought her husband and friends to the office for what she described as a “phenomenal” experience.
“You never wait more than like, a minute,” Patilis said. “It’s just a very efficient office — clean and comfortable. The standards are always high, and anyone you encounter always has a smile and good attitude.”
Patillis recalled visiting the office frequently as a younger patient, laughing about all the cavities she would get from not properly caring for her teeth. But, she continued, the team educated her on how to brush and floss better — something she said helped her turn her dental hygiene around.
She went from visiting every four months to address dental problems, such as cavities and receding gums, to every six months for regular cleanings.
And, she said, not only are her teeth healthier, but she feels more confident. “You feel good about yourself,” Patillis said. “The first thing people see is your smile, you know? I love coming here. I tell Dr. Rallis not to retire!”
As for Maria Vitagliano, a registered dental hygienist at the practice, Rallis and the rest of the staff is what makes the office great to work at and ultimately better for its patients.
“I mean, the atmosphere and the professionalism that Dr. Rallis gives off, as well as Luisa — we just mesh well together,” Vitagliano said. “I just like that about this office.”
According to Rallis, his biggest accomplishment was training directly with the late Dr. Peter Dawson, founder of the Dawson Academy, who authored the best selling dental text, “Evaluation, Diagnosis and Treatment of Occlusal Problems.”
“I’m very proud because I went from being a student to being part of the faculty,” Rallis said. “It’s something that I hold very dear, and I hold in high regard.”
For more information about the practice, visit CenterForSmiles.com, or call (718) 631-7800.
