Meet the family behind a beloved Ecuadorian American Restaurant in Queens

Last Friday, the line to get into Barzola in Jackson Heights streamed out the front door.

Inside, more than 100 people were packed in front of six large TV screens dotting the dining area’s perimeter. The occasion was the World Cup qualifier match betweem Ecuador and Venezuela (Ecuador won, 2-1).

The establishment’s owner, Julio Barzola, 79, walked around the room, talking to people with his son, René, while regulars, young and old, greeted them with handshakes and hugs.

Since opening in 1987, Barzola — which has since occupied several locations across Brooklyn and Queens — has become a beloved spot among New York’s Ecuadorian American community, due to its live music, soccer game watch parties and, of course, the traditional coastal Ecuadorian cuisine it executes magnificently.

The restaurant is the triumph of the Barzola family: Julia, Julio and their five children. Back in the port city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, Mom and Pop ran a home-cooked food business. She took culinary classes to hone her skills and he, a jack-of-all-trades, also imported electronics, coordinated produce donations to shelters and served as a municipal inspector for the local police.

Julio said he grew fed up with the corruption there through the mid-1980s and decided to move to the United States to obtain a better future for his family, no matter what it entailed.

The family arrived in New York on July 6, 1986 (Julio can still rattle off the exact date), and that week, he got a job packing sweaters and T-shirts in Brooklyn.

“I worked 19 months for the Ecuadorian government,” he said. “I came here and worked 19 months in a sweatshop factory.”

The parents initially brought over their two youngest children and left the other children with family back in Guyaquil while they saved up enough to bring the whole family to New York City. While Julio worked his packing job, Julia took care of their babies and cooked his work lunches.

At the factory, Julia’s home cooking garnered rave reviews, and eventually purchase requests. So the Barzolas decided to make a business of it. Together, they sold their food at their friends’ soccer games at the local parks by their home in Bushwick. They catered parties. In July 1987, they transformed their railroad apartment into an underground supper club.

René, the youngest child, recalled growing up amid the nascent hospitality enterprise.

“I used to have people in my living room, and I was like, ‘Who’s this? Who’s that?,” René said. “There were people bunched up, sitting down or standing in the corner, with their plate in their hand.” He recalled feeling a “mix of emotions” — excited and nervous about all the strangers in his home.

Word of the Barzolas’ cooking spread further. In March 1993, they signed the lease on a storefront on Meserole Street in Bushwick. Eventually the whole family would pitch in at the restaurant — charging at the register, serving, prepping, cleaning.

“We used to just have competitions of who could chop quicker,” René said, recalling dicing onions and tomatoes.

In 2005, the family opened its second Barzola restaurant, this time in Jackson Heights. Then, in 2020, Astoria. (The Brooklyn location is now closed, while the two Queens locations still operate.)

The family’s success has been fueled by the local Ecuadorian community, which keeps coming back.

On the Friday night I visited, I met a young woman whose family goes to Barzola for every reunion, holiday celebration and Ecuadorian soccer game. That evening, she’d brought over her friends from the Ecuadorian club at Baruch College.

“The empanadas de verde (crispy, cheese-stuffed, green plantain pastry) taste like home,” said Ariana Loor, who was dressed in Ecuador’s soccer jersey and holding its flag.

Another special, the encebollado (fish stew), is made with tuna loins, instead of fillets, to imbue a subtly briny broth that gets thickened with white rice and contrasts with the tart curtido (pickled red onions). The muchines (cassava balls) are golden-fried pillows of cassava stuffed with mozzarella for oozy cheese pulls. They’re served with a complex dipping sauce of sugarcane and cinnamon whose sweetness doesn’t overpower the muchines’ savoriness.

The ceviche, made from swordfish, is firm, fresh, and flavorful. The tripe is tender and clean-tasting, lending its signature chewiness to a velvety peanut sauce. The rich red sauce in the seafood casserole bubbles in its cast-iron pot.

René, who now fills in at the restaurant whenever the need arises, beamed when describing what his parents have built.

“Both of them — my mom and dad — they’re the masterminds,” René said at the restaurant. “They have this paladar [palate] to know when a spice isn’t sufficient, or an onion isn’t sliced thinly enough. They were always in the kitchen. That’s why everything always tastes the same.”

Today, René’s older brother Julio Jr. runs both restaurants. Julio Sr. still visits to socialize with friends and pop into the kitchen to check on things. A few years ago, Julia was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She exceeded the two-year timeframe diagnosed by her doctor, and kept coming into the kitchen until she died in 2019.

“Do you feel like you’ve achieved the American Dream?” I asked the elder Julio.

“Yes,” he said. “But I lost my soulmate.”

His children are carrying on the family’s spirit of hospitality — several of them operate their own restaurants now. A grandson works at Barzola’s Astoria location. René owns Blue Tijuana-Barzola in College Point, which serves Mexican and Ecuadorian dishes.

“They did this for us,” René said, gesturing around the packed dining space.