The scent hits you earlier than you see her. Sizzling oil, charred corn dough, and one thing candy and smoky abruptly. You’re on the nook of 79th Avenue and Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens, and it’s near midnight. Maria Piedad Cano — the Arepa Girl — has been working this nook for the reason that early Nineteen Eighties, and the road of Colombian and Ecuadorian employees stretching again towards the elevated 7 practice tells you the whole lot you must learn about who this meals truly belongs to.

NYC has arepas, and NYC has empanadas. However “NYC arepas” is definitely two separate immigrant meals traditions working concurrently on the identical streets — one Colombian, one Venezuelan — that the majority guests and most meals writers have by no means discovered to inform aside. And the empanada state of affairs is much more layered: Colombian cornmeal, Argentine wheat pastry, and Puerto Rican pastelillo arrived by way of utterly separate immigration waves and have by no means merged right into a single custom. That is the story of how all of it bought right here.

The place Did NYC’s Empanada and Arepa Avenue Scene Come From?

The arepas and empanadas on Roosevelt Avenue at present hint again to pre-Colombian corn tradition that’s over 3,000 years outdated — however the New York chapter of that story started within the mid-Twentieth century, when Andean and Caribbean immigration reshaped the demographics of Queens and Brooklyn one block at a time.

The foundational cut up is within the grain itself. Colombian arepas use masa de maíz — floor corn that retains uncooked starch, yielding a dense, flat cake with a barely gritty, earthy chew. Venezuelan arepas use masarepa, a precooked cornmeal (the P.A.N. model dominates the market) wherein the starch has already been gelatinized by way of a cooking-and-drying course of earlier than it ever reaches the kitchen. That pre-gelatinization is why the Venezuelan arepa puffs, develops a crackling exterior crust, and might be cut up open and crammed with out crumbling. The Colombian arepa does none of these issues. Identical ingredient class, utterly completely different meals science.

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Empanadas add a 3rd variable: the shell materials. Colombian empanadas use a cornmeal shell (masa de maíz once more, fried). Argentine empanadas use a wheat flour pastry. Puerto Rican pastelillos use a skinny wheat wrapper nearer to a dumpling pores and skin. Three completely different textures, three completely different communities, three separate provide chains — all working in the identical metropolis, typically on the identical block.

NYC Latin Avenue Meals Traditions at a Look

How Did Colombian Arepas Arrive in Jackson Heights?

The Colombian arepa custom took root in Jackson Heights throughout the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties immigration wave, when Queens absorbed tens of 1000’s of Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Peruvian arrivals who remodeled Roosevelt Avenue into the financial and cultural backbone of the New York Latin American group. By 1980, Jackson Heights was already house to extra Colombian immigrants than every other U.S. neighborhood, and the sidewalk meals economic system arrived with them.

The Arepa Girl’s story is the defining one. Maria Piedad Cano emigrated from Colombia and commenced promoting arepas de choclo from a avenue cart on Roosevelt Avenue someday within the early Nineteen Eighties. She labored late nights and early mornings to serve the nightclub employees, taxi drivers, and shift employees who made up her first buyer base. Her arepa de choclo — recent candy corn, white cheese melted into the middle, griddled till char spots develop on each faces — grew to become the street-level default for Colombian arepas in New York. As Eater NY documented of their profile, her cart outlasted complete generations of brick-and-mortar eating places within the neighborhood. As of 2026, the operation has expanded to incorporate a brick-and-mortar location, however the sidewalk cart at 79th and Roosevelt continues to be probably the most genuine model of the expertise.

Watch this video to get a glimpse of one in every of NYC’s empanada specialists:

Palenque, working out of a meals truck that works the Jackson Heights and Woodside hall, extends this custom additional into Queens. Their hen arepa and ajiaco soup combo (as of 2026, round $14 for each) represents the restaurant-grade expression of the identical Colombian avenue meals tradition the Arepa Girl pioneered on the sidewalk.

“The Arepa Girl didn’t simply begin a enterprise — she established the taxonomy for a way Colombian avenue meals could be understood in New York for the following 4 a long time.”

When Did Venezuelan Arepas Change the NYC Scene?

The Venezuelan arepa arrived in New York as a definite, parallel custom beginning within the late Nineties and accelerating by way of the 2000s as Venezuelan political and financial instability drove a major diaspora. The Colombian and Venezuelan arepa traditions didn’t merge — they coexist, serve completely different communities, and stay structurally distinct.

Arepas Cafe in Astoria (established 2000) is the historic bridgehead. It launched the crammed Venezuelan arepa — thick, oven-finished, cut up alongside the equator and loaded with reina pepiada (hen and avocado), pabellon (shredded beef, black beans, candy plantain, white cheese), or carne mechada — to a Queens viewers that principally knew solely the flat Colombian model. As Critical Eats has famous of their arepa deep-dive, the masarepa-based Venezuelan format is sort of inconceivable to duplicate with out P.A.N. or its equivalents — the pre-gelatinization step produces a texture that masa de maíz merely can not obtain.

Shachi’s introduced the Venezuelan mannequin into Midtown Manhattan, making it accessible to the lunch crowd that beforehand had no street-level publicity to the format. Guacuco in Bushwick grew to become the Brooklyn anchor within the late 2010s, establishing Venezuelan avenue meals within the borough’s food-dense neighborhoods. As of 2026, the Venezuelan arepa has a foothold in Astoria, Midtown, and Bushwick — three geographically separated outposts that serve virtually completely completely different buyer bases and virtually by no means compete with the Colombian sidewalk custom in Jackson Heights.

“Anti-ad actuality verify: whereas meals influencers and sponsored journey content material will ship you to a branded Venezuelan arepa restaurant in Midtown, probably the most traditionally important arepa expertise in New York continues to be a Colombian avenue cart in Jackson Heights that the majority of those self same influencers have by no means visited.”

Colombian vs. Venezuelan Immigration Timeline and NYC Footprint

The place Do NYC Avenue Empanadas Really Come From?

The empanada state of affairs in New York is a three-way overlap, and the three traditions have barely acknowledged one another’s existence for 50 years. The Colombian cornmeal empanada arrived in Jackson Heights with the identical Seventies–80s immigration wave that introduced the Colombian arepa. The Argentine wheat-pastry empanada entered by way of the restaurant sector — Nuchas, which gained a Vendy Award and established a number of areas, is the highest-profile instance — and occupies a barely extra upmarket lane. The Puerto Rican pastelillo has roots within the Bronx and East Harlem going again to the Fifties Puerto Rican migration wave.

The Colombian cornmeal empanada is a small, dense, fried object — roughly fist-sized, with a pale gold cornmeal shell that has a barely gritty, crunch-exterior texture from frying. Commonplace filling is beef and potato with cumin seasoning. At all times served with aji amarillo dipping sauce. Worth at Jackson Heights sidewalk carts as of 2026: $2–$3 every. At El Pequeño Colombia on 84th Avenue, two empanadas and a chilly drink runs beneath $8.

The Argentine empanada is visibly completely different: bigger, with a wheat-pastry shell, deeper brown from frying or baking, and a repulgue — a crimped-rope edge sample that historically indicators the filling sort in Argentine kitchens. The pastry is richer, extra buttery, and the filling extra advanced (beef, olives, hard-boiled egg within the traditional model). As Bon Appétit has lined, Nuchas standardized the Argentine format for a mainstream New York viewers. As of 2026, Nuchas operates in a number of Midtown and Decrease Manhattan areas with costs starting from $5–$7 per empanada.

The connection to the broader NYC avenue meals ecosystem runs by way of geography: the identical Roosevelt Avenue hall that hosts the Colombian arepa and empanada custom overlaps with the NYC avenue taco scene in Jackson Heights and Corona, and all three meals cultures draw from the identical Latin American immigrant avenue economic system that NYC Halal Cart Information paperwork on the parallel immigrant meals economic system in Midtown and Queens. The Pink Hook Meals Distributors Information captures the Brooklyn expression of the identical masa-based custom.

What Does the NYC Empanada and Arepa Scene Look Like in 2026?

As of 2026, the NYC empanada and arepa panorama has greater than 15 confirmed energetic distributors working throughout Queens, Manhattan, and Brooklyn, with Jackson Heights remaining the undisputed epicenter of the Colombian custom. The Venezuelan operations in Astoria and Bushwick have stabilized and grown. Worth-wise, the Colombian avenue cart custom has remained extra secure than most NYC avenue meals classes — a $3 arepa de choclo from a sidewalk cart continues to be a $3 arepa de choclo in 2026, although higher-end Venezuelan restaurant codecs run $12–$18 for a crammed arepa plate.

Generational continuity is the story price noting. The Arepa Girl’s operation has survived and expanded. Palenque continues working their meals truck route by way of Queens. El Pequeño Colombia on 84th Avenue continues to be serving the identical Colombian working-class buyer base it has served for many years. The distributors who established these traditions within the Seventies–90s constructed sturdy operations which have outlasted a lot of the meals media protection that has sometimes observed them. As Grub Avenue’s Jackson Heights information has famous, the neighborhood’s sidewalk meals economic system operates largely unbiased of the restaurant media cycle.

For a full cross-borough vendor stock, the NYC Empanadas & Arepas Information has the whole vendor map and crawl itinerary. The companion subject information to arepa and empanada kinds in NYC covers the ingredient-level variations so you possibly can learn any menu within the metropolis chilly.

Definitely worth the Journey? — Greatest For Who

For vendor-level element on what to order at every cart and counter — together with the precise dough science that separates Colombian from Venezuelan at ingredient stage — the subject information to arepa and empanada kinds in NYC is the companion learn. And for those who’re constructing out a full Jackson Heights meals crawl, the Jackson Heights Himalayan Avenue Meals Information paperwork the Tibetan and Nepalese distributors working on the identical Roosevelt Avenue hall — the complete immigrant avenue meals ecosystem in a single neighborhood.

We’ve additionally visited Palenque for his or her Colombian truck operation and Shachi’s for his or her Venezuelan arepas and empanadas — each definitely worth the journey for various causes.

“In over a decade of masking NYC avenue meals, we’ve discovered no different class the place the immigration historical past is extra instantly legible within the meals itself — two separate corn traditions, two separate communities, two separate provide chains, working concurrently on the identical streets and nonetheless not totally seen to mainstream meals media.”

“The Arepa Girl shouldn’t be a heritage story or a nostalgia undertaking — she’s an energetic vendor who has been working repeatedly longer than most NYC eating places have existed. In case your meals information doesn’t point out her by title, it doesn’t know what it’s speaking about.”

Incessantly Requested Questions

What’s the historical past of arepas in NYC?

NYC’s arepa scene has two distinct histories. Colombian arepas arrived in Jackson Heights throughout the Seventies–80s immigration wave, with the Arepa Girl (Maria Piedad Cano) establishing the sidewalk custom from the early Nineteen Eighties onward. Venezuelan arepas arrived later, by way of the 2000s–2010s diaspora, with Arepas Cafe in Astoria serving because the bridgehead. Each traditions function concurrently within the metropolis at present and are structurally and culinarily distinct.

When did Venezuelan arepas come to NYC?

Venezuelan arepas started arriving in NYC within the late Nineties and accelerated by way of the 2000s–2010s as Venezuelan political and financial instability drove important diaspora migration. Arepas Cafe in Astoria, established in 2000, is the traditionally earliest anchor of the Venezuelan arepa format in New York.

Who’s the Arepa Girl?

The Arepa Girl is Maria Piedad Cano, a Colombian immigrant who has been promoting arepas on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights for the reason that early Nineteen Eighties. She is most related to the arepa de choclo (candy recent corn arepa with white cheese) and is extensively thought of the foundational determine in NYC’s Colombian avenue meals scene. Her operation has since expanded to incorporate a brick-and-mortar location whereas sustaining the unique sidewalk cart.

What’s the historical past of empanadas in New York?

NYC’s empanada scene displays three separate immigration waves: Colombian cornmeal empanadas arrived in Jackson Heights with the Seventies–80s Colombian wave; Argentine wheat-pastry empanadas entered primarily by way of the restaurant sector (Nuchas being the highest-profile instance); and Puerto Rican pastelillos have been a part of the Bronx and East Harlem meals economic system for the reason that Fifties migration. These three traditions have by no means merged and proceed to function independently with completely different buyer bases and provide chains.

What’s the distinction between Colombian and Venezuelan arepas?

Colombian arepas use masa de maíz (floor corn with uncooked starch), producing a flat, dense cake griddled open-faced. Venezuelan arepas use masarepa (precooked, pre-gelatinized cornmeal, with P.A.N. because the dominant model), producing a thick, puffed arepa with a crackling crust that may be cut up and crammed. The gelatinization distinction is the technical cause the Venezuelan arepa puffs whereas the Colombian one stays flat. They aren’t interchangeable.