Nicole Ponseca might just be the happiest accident NYC cuisine has seen yet.
She never planned on becoming a nationally renowned restaurateur. After graduating from the University of San Francisco with a degree in advertising in 1998, Nicole Ponseca hopped a plane to New York and quickly found a place at the firm Saatchi and Saatchi. But just as she settled into city life, Nicole hit a snag.
“I was more or less the only brown girl in the room,” Ponseca remembered. “The assumption was that I was the expert and people would always ask me: ‘Where should I go for Thai food?’ I would answer, I don’t know, what are you asking me for? Then I was looking around the room and I was like– oh, I get it. They have no idea who I am or what I am. I was awakening to what representation meant.”
A proud Filipino-American, Nicole became determined to carve out a place for Filipino culture in NYC food. Still working as an advertising executive by day, she began moonlighting as a host and dishwasher at local restaurants. In 2007, Nicole was finally able to leave advertising behind and enter the restaurant world full-time as the general manager of Juliette, a French bistro in Williamsburg.
By 2011, Nicole was ready to bring her own vision to life. She stumbled upon a beautiful French restaurant that wasn’t using the space on weekends. In her first-ever negotiation, Nicole secured the space to take on the weekend brunch rush– with a twist. “I knew enough about brunch and what sold and how I could reinterpret Filipino food through brunch, but keep it authentic,” Ponseca added.
The brunch pop-up, Maharlika Filipino Moderno, had guests lined around the corner within just a few weeks. Among the first of its kind back in 2011, the pop-up was met with rave reviews from critics and customers alike. Nicole had just begun, and it was already time
to expand.
The next year, she opened Jeepney NYC in the East Village. “We built the restaurant around a number of ideas that we didn’t get to use for the pop-up,” Ponseca continued. Where Maharlika was a refined and elegant spot for a Sunday out on the town, Jeepney was a boisterous adventure– an exploration of Filipino culture that stretched well beyond the menu itself.
Nicole continued to flourish outside of the kitchen. Her book I Am Filipino was released in 2018 and has been lauded as Best Cookbook of the Year by the New Yorker, Boston Globe, the New York Times Book Review, and more. While researching the book in the Philippines, she met Greg Banzon of Century Pacific Food, who introduced her to her newest venture: the unMEAT 100% plant-based burger. As a lover of plant-based foods, Nicole is helping bring unMEAT to the U.S., flipping the first unMEAT burgers in her Jeepney kitchen. Nicole commented, “We have seen some incredible flavor profiles enter the market and completely disrupt it, and I think unMEAT is only going to further that disruption.”
Then, in March, 2020, Nicole was hit with the most daunting obstacle of her career: the Covid-19 pandemic. She was forced to temporarily close Jeepney, before returning at limited capacity to serve frontline workers and eventually expanding to pick-up and delivery.
“I’m stubborn,” Ponseca asserted. “There were so many times over the lifespan of the restaurant where I didn’t think we were going to make it, but we just keep persevering.”
The struggle didn’t end with the restaurant. Since the initial shutdown last March, Nicole lost her father to Covid-19 and has experienced racist harassment in the streets. Recalling a moment in the early months of the pandemic, Nicole described being spit on by strangers as she tried to buy food in Chinatown.
“I was very naive, up until now, going into rooms,” she said. “I didn’t experience a lot of outward hate or racism to me.”
Still, Nicole refuses to stop moving. “I’m going to stay open,” she said, “and I’m going to reinvent.”
Jeepney is currently offering pick-up and delivery services. With the return of indoor dining, Nicole Ponseca will be able to open her doors to customers yet again sometime soon.
