Cantina 33

Company Overview

Cantina 33 is a small, independently owned Peruvian restaurant located at 55-33 Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood, Queens, sitting right on the border of Queens and Brooklyn in New York City. Established in 2019 by chef and owner Kevin Lenis, the restaurant bills itself as serving traditional Peruvian cuisine with a modern twist. It is the kind of neighborhood spot that built its name the honest way: through food, hospitality, and word of mouth, including a popular Tacu Tacu happy hour and a steady following on local review platforms and social media.

Like countless small restaurants, Cantina 33 fought to survive the COVID-19 shutdowns. In contemporaneous local reporting, the owner spoke candidly about the uncertainty of those years and the hard work of keeping the doors open. That is a story of grit and small-business endurance, not of a corporation chasing the latest political fashion. This is a privately held, single-location eatery with no shareholders to appease, no corporate communications department, and no national activist agenda. For shoppers who simply want a great meal from people who care about their craft and their community, that profile is a feature, not a flaw.

ESG & Sustainability

BWF found no evidence that Cantina 33 publishes an ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) report, pursues formal sustainability certifications, or makes corporate ESG pledges of any kind. This is entirely expected and entirely welcome. ESG frameworks are a creation of large publicly traded corporations and the asset managers who pressure them; a family-run Peruvian kitchen in Queens has no business being roped into that bureaucratic machinery, and there is no sign that it has been.

What a restaurant like this practices instead is the practical, common-sense stewardship that good small businesses have always practiced: managing food costs, minimizing waste because waste is expensive, and sourcing ingredients that make the dishes taste right. That is real-world responsibility driven by ownership and accountability, not by a consultant's scorecard. The absence of performative ESG messaging here is good news for values-based diners who are tired of being lectured by the businesses they patronize.

DEI Programs

BWF found no indication that Cantina 33 operates any formal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) program, maintains a DEI officer, sets hiring quotas, or runs corporate diversity training. As a small, owner-operated, family-run establishment, it has no corporate HR apparatus to host such initiatives in the first place.

What this restaurant reflects is organic, authentic community rather than manufactured ideology. Ridgewood is one of the most genuinely diverse neighborhoods in the country, and a Peruvian restaurant there draws its character from real heritage and real cooking, not from a diversity statement posted on a corporate website. Hiring at a place like this is driven by who can do the job and who fits the team, which is exactly how it should be. The lack of a top-down DEI bureaucracy means resources go toward the food and the guests, not toward divisive politics in the workplace.

LGBTQ+ Advocacy

BWF found no evidence that Cantina 33 sponsors Pride events, runs Pride-themed marketing campaigns, takes public positions on transgender policy, or participates in any LGBTQ+ political advocacy. The restaurant carries no Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Corporate Equality Index score, which is unsurprising and reassuring: the HRC index is a tool aimed at large corporations, and small independent restaurants are neither rated by it nor beholden to it.

This is precisely what conservative and faith-minded consumers are looking for. Cantina 33 appears to do what a restaurant should do, which is welcome every customer who walks through the door and serve them a good plate of food, without dragging political activism into the dining room. There is no indication of activist signaling, no controversial policy campaigns, and no corporate alignment with national advocacy organizations. Customers can simply enjoy a meal without feeling like they have been enlisted in someone else's culture war.

Political Activity

BWF found no record of political action committee (PAC) contributions, lobbying activity, or partisan political spending associated with Cantina 33. As a small private business, the restaurant is not the kind of entity that maintains a corporate PAC or funds advocacy organizations, and our research surfaced no evidence of any left-leaning political donations or endorsements.

The owner's public comments that BWF located were about the practical realities of running a restaurant through difficult times, not about pushing a political ideology onto customers. There is no detectable CEO activism here, no controversial public statements, and no corporate political machine. The absence of partisan spending means that a dollar spent at Cantina 33 stays focused on the business itself rather than being funneled into political causes that many of its customers would oppose. For values-based shoppers, a clean political record like this is exactly the kind of neutrality worth rewarding.

Consumer Impact

For consumers who want to keep their money away from corporate wokeness, Cantina 33 represents a clear, comfortable choice. It is a small, independent, owner-operated Peruvian restaurant with no ESG reporting, no DEI bureaucracy, no HRC rating, no Pride sponsorships, and no detectable left-wing political spending. In other words, it carries none of the activist baggage that drives many shoppers away from larger national brands.

Spending money here supports a local entrepreneur and his team, strengthens a neighborhood small business, and rewards a focus on food and hospitality over politics. BWF's research found no controversies or red flags. While the absence of a public corporate footprint means some details cannot be independently verified, that very absence is the point: this is a restaurant, not a political organization. With a woke score of 3 out of 100, Cantina 33 earns a strong endorsement from BWF as the kind of business that lets you simply enjoy your meal in peace.