Just a few months after opening Harana Market’s original Woodstock location in the fall of 2020, owners Chris Mauricio and Eva Tringali knew they were going to need a bigger space. “People always say that you need three to five years to see whether a new business is actually going to make it,” says Tringali, “but the response was so immediate that we knew even then that we needed to start searching for our next home.” This Thursday, after almost two years of community fundraising and build-out, the second iteration of their beloved Filipino deli and Asian market opened on Route 209 in Accord.
Harana’s new home, the spacious 2,500-square-foot barn on Route 209 that has previously been home to everything from a gym to a pizza restaurant and a barbecue joint, offered Mauricio and Tringali an opportunity to dramatically expand their footprint.
Their original location, a 100-year-old general store perched on a sharp curve on Wittenberg Road, was known for its precarious parking situation and tiny 800-square-foot interior that only accommodated a few customers at a time. Despite its physical constraints, Mauricio and Tringali grew Harana (the Tagalog word for serenade) into a warm-hearted community hub that celebrated the homestyle Filipino recipes handed down to Mauricio by their grandmother and served as a safe “third place” for Queer, Trans, AAPI, and BIPOC communities in the Hudson Valley.
A Community-Supported Expansion
The couple began fundraising last summer, and through a generous loan from a local Filipino family, a silent auction, a GoFundMe fundraiser, and a HaloHaloween event at neighboring Skate Time raised over $30,000. To bring Harana 2.0 to life, they partnered with Ora Ferdman of Accord-based Fora Construction. “Ora, our Earth angel, reached out to us over email and said, ‘Hey, I’m a neighbor and a builder and I want to help you with this project,’” says Tringali. “None of this would have happened without her.”
After almost a decade of working for general contractors on residential and commercial projects in the area that included Hotel Kinsley and Lola in Kingston, Ferdman, a designer and third-generation builder, opened her own firm last year to focus on building trans, queer, POC, and women-run community spaces in the Hudson Valley.
Inspired by photographs from Mauricio and Tringali’s visits to the Philippines, Ferdman worked closely with the couple to design a space that felt like home and honored the heritage of Harana’s lutong bahay (homestyle) Filipino food. Next to the front door, Ferdman hand-painted the Tagalog words “Kain Tayo” (Let’s Eat) in bright turquoise, a color that is carried throughout the dining space and the custom banquet that runs along the back wall and in the lacquered countertop of the DJ booth, which fills the space with music in a nod to Harana’s namesake.
In addition to the banquet, two-top tables that Ferdman’s team fabricated from salvaged wood provide seating for almost 30 inside, and there are a handful of picnic tables in the large front yard for when the weather is nice. In the coming months, Ferdman will also be hand-painting murals in the interior, and working with Mauricio and Tringali to build-out the property’s 1,000-square-foot outbuilding for Harana’s community events. “This project has been so collaborative,” Ferdman says. “It really felt like we were supporting each other throughout the process.”
Menu Mainstays Hold Strong
Inspired by generations-old family recipes, Mauricio’s hand-rolled lumpia, impossibly crispy patis citrus fried chicken, garlicky arroz caldo, and fiery tofu sisig put Harana Market on the map as a food destination quickly, earning accolades from the New York Times as a must-visit new restaurant in the Catskills.
At the new location, Mauricio and their team will continue to offer all of Harana’s classic, seasonally rotating dishes, as well as a few new menu items including a $7 silog rice bowl and the option to make rice plate entrees family style and receive a larger portion with no rice. BYOB is also welcome, and there is now more shelf space for their selection of Asian pantry items such as gochujang, fish sauce, dried and frozen noodles, and sweet treats, as well as Indigenous housewares and imported foods from independent makers and vendors.
“That’s part of the magic for me when I go to work everyday,” says Mauricio. “We’re not only creating space but access to ingredients that make people feel closer to home.”
Running a Mission-Driven Business
From day one of their Wittenberg location opening, the couple has imbued their business with a “rising tides lift all boats” ethos, focusing on fostering a supportive, inclusive environment that creates positive impact for their team, customers, and their community.
Longtime Harana customers may notice the prices have increased on each menu item by a few dollars, an intentional move to a gratuity-included system that helps provide Harana staff with a living wage. Their food equity programs, which includes a pay-it-forward gift wall that invites visitors to give or take prepaid meal vouchers, and a ‘Chosen Family’ meal program where every Sunday LGBTQIA+ people eat free, will also continue at the new location, in addition to a slate of new events and programming.
Photo by Ashleigh Lovelace
The outbuilding will eventually serve as a space for events and programming.
“Being mission-driven and family-owned gives us an opportunity to directly contribute to the type of world we want to live in,” Tringali says. “We get to choose what our priorities are and make business decisions in support of that.”
Harana Market
5125 Route 209, Accord
Thursday-Monday, 11:30am-6:30pm
Haranamarket.com
