Thursday, June 4, 2026

Happy Thursday, happy June, and happy Pride month! There’s much to be excited about in the World’s Borough this time of year, but for today’s Eats in Queens we’re focusing exclusively on the festivities of this Saturday, June 6: Elmhurst Day, brought to you by Next Stop Elmhurst, Queens Together’s merchant organizing program with NYC Small Business Services. From 1pm to 5pm we’ll be celebrating the incredible diversity of this dynamic neighborhood via its food and culture. So what does that mean, exactly? Here’s the schedule of free events; pick one or all to check out, and read on to learn more about the FOOD that will be available.

1pm: We suggest attendees first check out the Indonesian Food Bazaar at St. James Church’s parish house, which will be running 11am-6pm on Saturday. Besides the wide range of food available for purchase, there will be Indonesian and Burmese dance performances. 

2:15pm: Next there will be Tibetan Sengye dancers performing the Snow Lion Dance on Woodside Avenue, in front of Frank D. O’Connor Playground. 

2:30pm: Stick around for a unique “Blessing of the Wheels and Heels” for everyone who moves through our streets (bring your bikes, scooters, skates, running shoes!), with clergy from local temples, churches, and mosques. The idea for this interfaith blessing was inspired by the annual Blessing of the Bikes at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which Queens Together founder Jonathan Forgash has attended for the past two years. 

3pm: Some of our elected officials will speak about the Elmhurst community.

4pm: Catch a Balinese dance performance at Moore Homestead Park, where you can also find more Indonesian food at the IGA Food Bazaar (running 11am-5pm).

Throughout the day you can pop into the Sherpa Buddhist monastery on 75th Street as well as the Thai temple on 46th Avenue. And of course, there will be food.

Elmhurst is chock-full of places to eat, and around 30 spots will be offering special featured dishes for purchase this Saturday. For some places it’s a new menu item; for others it’s a signature dish. Some restaurants are offering smaller grab-and-go portions with a special price just for Elmhurst Day. It’s up to you where to go and what to try, but we have so much information—including curated walking maps for five different routes through the neighborhood—on the website. There will also be volunteer guides roaming the area all day to help answer questions.

Today’s feature spotlights six of the participating restaurants for Elmhurst Day, and it’s just a sampling of what you might try on Saturday. Our advice: Show up hungry and curious with some cash to spend in the small independent eateries that make this neighborhood so unbelievably special. 

One of our restaurant owners—Tristan Chin-Fatt of Better Half Coffee + Kitchen—told us this week, “For us, Elmhurst Day is every day.” And it should be! But for anyone who wishes they knew the neighborhood better, for anyone intrigued by the amazing press Elmhurst has received of late–here’s your chance to easily dive into the neighborhood’s treasures in the span of just a few hours.

We can’t wait to see you on Saturday. —Laura Siciliano-Rosen, Eat Your World, editor, and Jonathan Forgash, Queens Together founder

What to Eat on Elmhurst Day

For many, Elmhurst is synonymous with great food. And Elmhurst Day will make it exceedingly easy for people to sample a wide range of that great food, as the curated walking maps we’ve put together are essentially endless ideas for self-guided food crawls. You’ll see we have maps for five distinct areas of Elmhurst: International Mile (aka Broadway between Roosevelt Ave. and Queens Blvd.), Little Thailand Way (aka Woodside Ave.), the Triangle (aka Baxter Ave., Broadway, and Roosevelt Ave.), Whitney Avenue, and Corona Avenue. 

This week, we made our own food crawl that pulled from each of these maps, as we sampled some of the dishes that Elmhurst Day attendees might try on Saturday. Here’s how it went:

Stop 1: Five Dreams Pizzeria y Antojitos. I started at the farthest point from my home, near the corner of Junction Boulevard and Corona Avenue at Mexican pizza specialists Five Dreams. I was already a fan of this place, but for Elmhurst Day owner German Juarez Morales is debuting two new $4 slices: cochinita pibil (slow-cooked pork) and tinga de pollo (shredded chicken with chipotle). Morales, a neighborhood local, compares the latter to a “really, really Mexican buffalo chicken,” with crema, chipotle mayonnaise, cilantro, and radish. The creamy kick of this slice is irresistible. The cochinita is reminiscent of pulled pork with a touch of habanero sauce, topped with pickled onions and cilantro. It’s delicious. 

Morales tells me he’s excited to offer the neighborhood something new in his Mexican pizzas, and hopefully attract new customers this Saturday. But “it’s not just pizza; it’s a family business first, and it’s all made with love,” he says. 94-66B Corona Ave.

Stop 2: Yaya Tea. This little storefront on Whitney Avenue, a 13-minute walk from Five Dreams along Corona and 43rd Avenues past leafy Veterans Grove, is offering a perfect little pick-me-up for Elmhurst Day: a refreshing mango lychee white tea (called the Boyfriend) and shrimp tempura onigiri, a delicious combination of warm, fresh white rice; crispy shrimp; and just the right amount of sweet mayo. Get them together for around $10. 86-12 Whitney Ave.

Stop 3: Eim Khao Mun Kai. A fixture on Broadway (aka International Mile) since it opened 12 years ago, Eim Khao Mun Kai specializes in khao mun kai, or Thai-style Hainanese steamed chicken and ginger rice. Helpfully, for Elmhurst Day, owner Sakkaya Pattanasupakul is packaging up the bestselling fragrant chicken and rice (plus spicy ginger sauce) in smaller $8 portions to make grab-and-go dining over multiple stops easier. He’s also offering smaller 10-ounce pours of his cold Thai drinks for $2.50. This is a fabulous way to sample from this beloved local spot without sitting down for a full meal. 

Pattanasupakul tells me he’s excited for Elmhurst Day. “This is a very good event to help small businesses and help people [get to] know us,” he says. “We [should] all help each other create a good event like this, for the community.” 81-32 Broadway 

Stop 4: Louie’s Pizza. If you know anything about Louie’s on Baxter Avenue (along what we call the Triangle), you probably know that (a) owner Louie Suljovic and his dad have proven themselves local heroes more than once, and (b) the grandma slice ($4.50) is fantastic, a delightful combination of soft and crispy textures and rich, savory flavor. This is the one to pop in for on Saturday. “We decided to go with the grandma slice, because it’s the one we’re known for, especially in our neighborhood, and it’s special,” Suljovic says. 

Louie’s is participating in Elmhurst Day because he’ll do just about anything to support his community here. “I’ve been in this community for 17 years, and it’s my home, more than my actual home is,” he says. “I really do love the community.” 81-34 Baxter Ave. #1

Stop 5: Hug Esan. An Isaan mainstay on Little Thailand Way since 2017, Hug Esan is offering something special for Elmhurst Day: a packaged takeaway portion of its excellent nam khao tod, or crispy rice salad, for $10. You can pair it with a Thai iced tea or coffee (reg. $6) for $15. It’s an incredible combo: The crunchy fried rice, sour fermented pork, fragrant herbs, and sweet-spicy flavors of this salad have long made it one of my favorites here. And nothing beats a cold Thai tea or coffee on a June day. 

Owner Chiraporn Sornphoom hopes Elmhurst Day will attract more people to the neighborhood, and that they’ll learn about more things to do and eat here. “I think that with Elmhurst Day [we’ll] make the community stronger,” she says. 77-16 Woodside Ave.

Stop 6: Better Half Coffee + Kitchen. This cafe and eatery is relatively new to Woodside Avenue (though the owners are not at all new to the community), but it’s quickly established itself as a go-to place for high-quality coffee, matcha, and select dishes. For Saturday, Better Half is featuring its gorgeous bestselling ube matcha latte ($10.50), which, for owner Tristan Chin-Fatt, reflects the cafe’s goal to pay tribute to their corner of Queens. 

“The ube represents a small piece of this super diverse community where we live, the Filipino community,” Chin-Fatt says. “We live very close to Little Manila. It’s our way of honoring that culture, and we source all our ube ingredients from the Philippines to try to keep it as authentic as possible.” The matcha, he says, isn’t so much drawn from local influence as a desire to showcase the cafe’s premium ingredients—in this case, high-quality ceremonial-grade matcha from Nippon Cha.

Participating in Elmhurst Day was “a no-brainer” for Chin-Fatt and his wife, Zhumei. “We are authentically a Queens cafe,” he says. “We are 100 percent Queens, pro-Queens, everything. Our staff and our own cultures tie in directly with being diverse, and celebrating that diversity and our community is what we’re all about.” 76-08 Woodside Ave.

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