Brooklyn restaurant at center of illegal migrant-driven food-vending scheme
A dingy Brooklyn restaurant with a laundry list of revolting health violations is at the center of an illegal vending scheme involving dozens of migrant women, who hawk meals made in its filthy kitchen on street corners across the Big Apple, The Post has learned.
With growing concern over such unregulated and potentially dangerous operations popping up citywide, The Post tailed about a half-dozen pollo peddlers — illegal migrants mostly from Ecuador — who have commandeered choice spots to sell $10 plates of chicken and rice.
The food originates in a Dominican joint called Guisa’o Restaurant in Bushwick, where up to 50 migrants at a time squeeze into a tiny kitchen to cook the grub, which is then delivered in coolers by van to the illegal street sellers.
“People really need to know the story behind the food they’re eating when it comes to these illegal migrant vendors,” said Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens), who sits on the health committee and learned of the scheme from The Post.
“These aren’t just kindly old ladies making meals in their home ovens. This is a mass operation with dozens of illegals crammed into a filthy, violation-riddled kitchen in Bushwick, churning out food by the caseload to sell on our streets.
“This is truly disgusting, and I think if more people knew that their quick ten-dollar lunch was actually from a jam-packed kitchen . . . strewn with vermin droppings and who knows what else, they might think twice before ordering off the guy on the corner.”
She continued: “And it’s cutting into local businesses, too, impacting the bottom line of shops trying to do the right thing and sell food the right way.”
On Wednesday, at about 11:30 a.m., The Post observed a van pull up to five Ecuadorian women standing along First Avenue and East 78th Street on the Upper East Side. Men unloaded 15 coolers, each filled with 50 to 100 pre-made lunches.
The women — who ranged in age from their early 20s to late 40s — then sold the tins of chicken, beef and fish over rice or fries, with a can of Coke, for $10, mostly to local hardhats.
One woman admitted in Spanish that she and the other sellers are in the U.S. illegally and don’t have a permit to sell food.
“We don’t want any problems; we’re just here to sell and make some money,” said the woman.
Around 1:30 p.m., following a lunch rush that drew roughly 25 customers, a van returned to collect the unsold containers.
The silver double-doored van with tinted windows then headed seven miles south to wholesale provider Restaurant Depot in Masbeth, Queens, where it met another tinted-windowed van. Three women and one man got out of both vans, and a woman went inside to pick up meat and other ingredients.
They all then loaded boxes of food into the back of the silver van, which soon after made a four-mile bee-line Guisa’o at 1062 Broadway.
There restaurant workers told The Post the food would be cooked for the next day’s vending.
A Guisa’o manager admitted about “50 immigrants” come there regularly to cook food in the kitchen with help from his staff.
In July, city health inspectors found a litany of stomach-churning violations at Guisa’o, including evidence of rats and insects. In all, it racked up 96 penalty points and received a “C” grade – the lowest given out by the Health Department.
Guisa’o — Spanish for “stew” — was also slammed with $10,959 in unpaid state tax liens last year that have since been satisfied, records show.
The business is registered with the state under a shadowy shell corporation called 1062 Food Corp. that fails to name any officers, records show.
The eatery’s manager claimed the owner is Rafael Veloz, but Veloz insisted a woman named “Maria” bought the business a few months ago and that she could spill the beans about the migrant operation.
He then blurted to the reporter, “Wait, are you calling from the Health Department? You’re not calling from the Health Department, right?”
Maria declined to give her last name but confirmed she owned Guisa’o and that illegal migrants are indeed using its kitchen to cook food and sell at construction sites. She declined further comment.
Guisa’o sits on the ground floor of a three-story building owned by a company called Beeda Realty and SVC Corp. in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, records show. Edwin Rodriquez, who is listed at Beeda’s chief executive officer, claimed it’s not his building.
Back in Manhattan, locals begged for enforcement.
“I understand [the migrants] feel the need to make money, but as far as I know they’re not here legally and they’re” putting consumers at risk “selling unregulated food,” said Upper East Sider Russell Rivera. “There’s people who legally work very hard in the hospitality industry, and [the migrants are] just showing up and taking their business.”
Jose Leon, owner of Italian Village Pizza & Restaurant on the corner of East 78th Street and First Avenue, said his profits dropped 30% since the migrants began peddling outside his shop nearly two years ago.
“I understand it’s affordable, but why do we have to be penalized when we pay taxes, insurance, everything?” he barked. “What’s wrong with this city?”
Selling food without a street vending license usually carries a $1,000 fine.
He said he’s lodged roughly 20 complaints with the city — to no avail.
Under Mayor Adams, the city has beefed up enforcement against illegal vendors, but there are no records on a migrant crackdown.
The NYPD and Sanitation Department, considered the main oversight agencies for street vending rules, has already issued more than 9,000 summonses to vendors this year, according to a recent analysis by City Limits.
This includes 5,747 tickets doled out by cops through September – or more than triple the 1,812 handed out during the same period in 2019 before the pandemic. Sanitation inspectors through October handed out 3,281 tickets – more than double the1,535 given the year before.
Leon, however, took matters into his owns hands a few months ago. He said he told the women he’d “throw all [their] stuff in the street” if they didn’t leave.
They listened, moving their containers of food about 100 feet north and becoming other business’ problem.
