Our story
Our Story
A little sun on 21st Street — one woman’s reinvention, made of bread, juice, coffee, and joy.
Meet Maria
From Fez to 21st Street
Maria was born in Fez, Morocco, and spent years as a celebrity-skincare specialist. When that work fell away in 2020, she didn’t stop — she opened a sunny little café in Astoria instead. “I wanted to sell flowers or cook,” she says, “and I’m a good cook. So I opened a little café, to do something beautiful for people.”
She runs it as a one-woman shop: she bakes the bread, makes the mayonnaise and the hot sauce from scratch, squeezes the juice, and pours a Turkish coffee with a cinnamon stick. Her Moroccan & Turkish table shows up in the food — the spinach pie, the baklava, the Mediterranean tuna — while the room is pure sunshine.
“Sunshine Café offers hope to everybody. It’s a magical place where people connect.”— Maria, in Astoria Characters
There’s a red JOY sign on the wall, and regulars leave good-luck charms in her pastry case — coins, clovers, little tokens. It’s that kind of place.
Come sit in the sun