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The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
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Family Still Slings Dominican 'Chimis' in Inwood

By Carla Zanoni | July 18, 2011 7:15am

INWOOD — When Manuel Cruz opened his chimi, or Dominican-style hamburger, truck in 1987, he never expected to still be slinging the neighborhood favorite late into his 70s.

But the 78-year-old said he has no plans to retire any time soon and has now introduced many of his relatives to the business, even putting three generations of “Mannys’— him, his son and grandson— to work his truck called Chimichury El Malecon over the weekend.

“It’s a family business,” said Cruz, whose daughter Monica and son David also man the truck.

“People ask me when I am going to retire and go back to the D.R. I tell them, I retired when I came here.”

Cruz, who moved to New York on New Year’s Eve in 1957, said he came to flee the Trujillo dictatorship that ruled the country, and built a family in the Bronx before moving to Inwood.

He said the neighborhood was different then, with fewer Latino people in northern Manhattan.

By the '80s, more people from the Dominican Republic began moving in and he came up with the idea of selling them food from their homeland.

Cruz said he never wanted to open a food truck and actually set out to create a food kiosk, akin to a magazine stand.

But he quickly learned a food truck was the only way he could begin selling his authentic chimis, made of 100 percent ground beef with shredded cabbage, tomato, onions and a mayonnaise and ketchup sauce on a toasted roll.

Cruz claims that he was the first person to open a chimi truck in the city, which is hard to prove and hard to imagine with the amount that now dot the streets of Northern Manhattan.

But judging from the steady stream of customers, few debate Cruz’s claim to be the best, which is emblazoned on the back of the truck, boasting “El Primero y El Mejor” ( The First and the Best) on 207th Street and Sherman Avenue.

Washington Heights resident Maria DelValle said, “There is nothing like this chimi.

“The meat and everything is fresh and juicy, these guys don’t play around.”

DelValle is not alone. The truck is celebrated on several culinary websites and a recent Yelp.com review lauds its hamburgers.

“Their chimi kicks the butts of those from all the other trucks,” writes Paul W about the $4 regular chimi or $6 double chimi.

Although the business was closed for a year while the family built a new truck from scratch — Cruz took the first and old truck to a junkyard last week — El Malecon is still as popular as ever after reopening last month.

And with a new truck has come new marketing. El Malecon joins the ranks of the other food trucks downtown that have taken to social media to spread the word about their chow.  

Chimichury El Malecon is now online as well with an active Facebook and Twitter account, hoping a foray into social media might bring chimi fans from all over the city. The crew has also set its sights on winning an award for their historic business at the Vendys, the popular annual food truck contest where another Inwood favorite truck vendor, Patacon Pisao, competed last year

“We know everybody loves the chimi,” Cruz said. “We plan to be here for a long time.”