On Skillman Avenue, two of Sunnyside's newest restaurants stand across the street from each other. Makina is at 46-11, serving Eritrean-Ethiopian food in a space that sat empty for a long time. Mriga is at 46-10, with bread, small plates and wine, in the storefront that used to be Quaint. Neither has been open two years. Together they mark one of two short stretches where the neighborhood's recent openings have landed.

The other stretch is a few blocks away on Greenpoint Avenue. There, three newer restaurants sit at addresses running from 44-20 to 45-21. Queens Boulevard, with the 7 train overhead, got one notable newcomer in the same period. Over the past year, new dining in Sunnyside has mostly arrived a block or two off the boulevard, and mostly in spaces that someone else had left.

Taste of Sunnyside Was the Introduction

The 16th annual Taste of Sunnyside ran Sunday, October 4. It drew a record crowd of more than 1,400 people to 70 participating businesses despite a steady rain, QNS reported. The Sunnyside Shines Business Improvement District organizes the crawl. The block party under the elevated tracks at Queens Boulevard and 46th Street came back, along with roaming musicians and the CitySoul Bus playing DJ sets around the neighborhood.

How the event is set up matters for the newer restaurants. Taste of Sunnyside used to happen in one place, with stalls under the Queens Boulevard tracks. In 2021 it became a door-to-door crawl, so ticket holders now go to the restaurants themselves and sample food at stands outside each one. For a restaurant on Skillman or Greenpoint Avenue, that means the crowd walks to its door.

In the same QNS recap, Sunnyside Shines executive director Dirk McCall de Palomá described the crawl as new businesses' first contact with many locals: "This is their introduction to the neighborhood because all the foodies stop by." This year Makina served injera chips, and Silvana, an Italian restaurant QNS described as newly opened, served pizza and pasta.

Longer-running places used the day the same way. Anik Amin of Cardamom told QNS that his family used to run a restaurant in Midtown, where customers came in on lunch breaks. "Here, you really get to know the people and I love that," he said.

Skillman Avenue's 46th Street Block

Makina has had the most attention of the year's openings. QNS wrote that few Sunnyside openings came with as much hype. It opened in December 2025. Eden Gebre Egziabher started it as a food truck in 2017, then ran it on Governors Island before moving into a Skillman storefront that had been vacant for a long time. QNS describes it as the only brick-and-mortar Eritrean-Ethiopian restaurant in Queens. The menu includes sambusas filled with beef or lentils, lamb alicha, berbere-spiced prawns, fish tshebi, and awaze tibs, a vegan sampler of spiced lentils, turmeric cabbage and string beans.

Mriga opened across the street at the beginning of May 2026. It serves breads and light bites with a wide wine list, in the space Quaint used to occupy.

Both restaurants work into a block that already had tenants and history. One fills a space that had been empty, the other took over from a closed restaurant. QNS opened its spring roundup with this same pattern. Some new restaurants replace "former beloved neighborhood staples," and others have "rehabilitated long-vacant spaces." On this block of Skillman, you can see both kinds from either doorway.

Greenpoint Avenue, Between 44th and 45th

The second cluster is a mix of three cuisines on a short stretch of Greenpoint Avenue.

Two of the three already had a track record. El Sabor del Rancho 2 is an offshoot of El Sabor del Rancho in Woodside. Döner Haus is the brand's third Queens location. Simple Peruvian joined what QNS calls Sunnyside's strong Peruvian presence, and its menu nods to the popularity of Chinese food in Lima. El Sabor del Rancho and Döner Haus both picked this part of Greenpoint Avenue for their next location.

Makina came to Skillman from a food truck and a seasonal Governors Island stand, and two of the Greenpoint Avenue three grew out of restaurants already operating in Queens. All of them ended up a block or more from the boulevard.

The Boulevard and the Side Streets

Queens Boulevard did get one opening. Sunnyside Up Café at 45-16 Queens Blvd. took over the closed Alpha Donuts and held its grand opening on May 19, 2026. It's a partnership between Sunnyside businessman Mircea Pirvu and chef Jason Potter. The menu centers on breakfast sandwiches, including an Egyptian-inspired one with lamb sausage, feta eggs and hummus, and a Japanese-inspired egg custard sandwich with miso mayo, gruyère and chili crisp.

The other openings are spread out farther. Locals Deli opened at 47-02 48th Ave. at the beginning of April 2026 with burgers, sandwiches, empanadas, quesadillas and fried chicken. Toward the western end of Skillman, Disbe Good began serving Nigerian takeout inside Sunnyside Eats at 40-05 Skillman Ave. in May, according to Eater's Queens heatmap, last updated October 6, 2026.

Laid out together, the openings run like this, roughly west to east:

• 40-05 Skillman Ave.: Disbe Good, inside Sunnyside Eats
• 44-20 to 45-21 Greenpoint Ave.: El Sabor del Rancho 2, Simple Peruvian, Döner Haus
• 45-16 Queens Blvd.: Sunnyside Up Café
• 46-10 and 46-11 Skillman Ave.: Mriga and Makina, across the street from each other
• 47-02 48th Ave.: Locals Deli

Only one of those addresses is under the 7 train.

The Restaurants They Joined

The crawl also showed how deep the established lineup is on these streets. QNS listed fall fritters and hot apple cider from Kora, pupusas from Ricas Pupusas & Mas, peanut soup from Bolivian Llama Party, pizzas from Sotto le Stelle and noodles from Ariyoshi. Bajeko Sekuwa appears in the outlet's lead photo. Cardamom has been in the crawl for five years. Amin told QNS that the number of people who later came back and said they first tried the food at Taste of Sunnyside "has been amazing."

Makina and Silvana took the same route this October, setting up stands outside their own doors for a crowd that walked to them.

Before the Season Turns

For an evening built around more than dinner, Thalia Spanish Theatre is showing PONCIA through November 8, 2026, which leaves a little over a week after this post goes up. Over on Skillman, Makina and Mriga's facing doors work as a two-stop evening: sambusas at one, then bread and a glass of wine at the other.

Changes like these at street level, such as a long-empty storefront reopening or two operators betting on the same block, are part of how Lauren Schaffer reads Sunnyside block by block. If you live near Skillman or Greenpoint Avenue and want to talk through what's moving on your stretch, schedule a personalized consultation.