At 3 am, much of Manhattan is asleep. But the woman inside a breakfast cart at 6th Avenue and West 51st Street is on her feet, hours before the first company executive or construction worker lines up for coffee and a bagel with cream cheese.
Her name is Xenia Efthimiou. She is among the last – and longest working – Greek women still running a food cart in New York City, on the same corner for the past 37 years.
Efthimiou came to the US alone from Greece when she was 15 years old, speaking no English. Greek immigrants already living in the city helped her through those first years, and helped her finish school. The food cart came later, after she had settled into life in the US and was a secretary at a company. “Someone from work told me they were selling a food [cart], and I thought we should buy it,” she says. That first cart eventually grew into a fleet of five. Today she has two: one she runs herself, and one she rents out.
The routine remains the same. Efthimiou wakes up at midnight and heads to the cart depot, known officially as a commissary, where the carts are restocked and cleaned before the morning shift. Then she picks up the breakfast items. “Every day we put in fresh orders. We never use anything from the day before,” she says. Whatever she doesn’t sell, she gives away. Her shift ends at 11 am, when the morning rush finally thins out.
