Posts Tagged ‘Dominican restaurant’

In this week’s Spotlight, we’re featuring Lali Restaurant, a family-run business Dominican restaurant located in Hell’s Kitchen. This is part of a longer story that Executive Editor Karina Taveras wrote as her thesis for graduate school (which she just completed last week, WOO-HOOOO!).

On an unusually clear and breezy June afternoon, Lestiel Lopez, her curvy silhouette crowding the doorway of Lali Restaurant in midtown Manhattan, declares her latest plan.

“We start selling frio-frio today,” she announces to her staff.

Dressed in a cotton t-shirt and skirt, Lestiel, 30, known as Les, swiftly enters the restaurant, hugging a green jug filled with fresh mint that hides half her face with its wild stems. She walks past the vinyl stools at the counter and plops the greenery down on a table. A gold headband keeps her dark curls in place. Her skin is the color of brown sugar. more »