Central Falls Landing buzzes with people on a recent July evening.

A group of about 28 is filing into the Blackstone Valley Explorer, a canopied charter boat offering historical and wildlife tours of the Blackstone River.

There is a plate of complimentary pastries and beverages, including malta, a non-alcoholic drink made from barley and hops that has a sweet, molasses taste. The dark drink piques the curiosity of just a handful. The rest are wary.

The group has signed up for the Broad Street International Food Tour, an introduction to the ethnic restaurants in Pawtucket, Central Falls and Cumberland that is being sponsored by the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council.

It is part of the council’s effort to showcase the cultural and historical richness of the street, which is the focus of a revitalization effort by the three municipalities.

The tours are unique because they offer patrons a glimpse into restaurants that cater to the local immigrant communities, from the Cape Verdean, Portuguese, and Latino. It is also an opportunity for the local businesses to expand their clientele.

“These tours are good because they give us the opportunity to meet people from different towns, and different countries and get more customers,” says Alfonso Moras, co-owner of La Casa del Pueblo, a Mexican restaurant in Central Falls that is featured on this particular tour day.

The tours, which began in June and will run each Wednesday until the end of August, all start with a pre-dinner river cruise, guided by Kevin Klyberg, of the National Parks Service. It is followed by a meal at a local restaurant and an opportunity to meet the chef and learn about the local cuisine and ingredients.

Klyberg keeps the tour light and informal as the boat leisurely takes the half-mile journey up river. Most of this week’s group consists of employees from the University of Rhode Island who are throwing a going-away party for one of their own.

The Blackstone River cuts a surprisingly tranquil path through the dense urban landscape. Just beyond its rocky shoreline live anywhere from 50,000 to 60,000 people in some of the densest communities in the state.

But save for the old mill structures that peek out over the trees at regular points along the river, you couldn’t tell on this cruise.

A blue heron is perched close to shore on a dead log just beyond the Valley Falls Marsh, a mill pond that was created when a dam upriver was built nearly 200 year ago. A pair of kayakers glide past the boat. There are geese, ducks and nearly 30 different species of fish in the black waters of the river.

It’s a far cry from where the Blackstone was a generation ago, when the river was little more than an industrial wasteland, its waters tinged with the colors of the dyes running from the factories and mills.

“It’s amazing to see how resilient a river can be,” Klyberg says.

AFTER AN HOUR on the river, the tour disembarks where it started, in Central Falls.

It is dinnertime, and the group loads into cars and heads about four blocks into the square mile city to La Casa del Pueblo, at 863 Broad St.

Alex Summer, of the tourism council, runs this part of the tour. He has been leading the council’s Broad Street Initiative, which seeks to re-brand the commercial corridor into a pedestrian-friendly main street, since he came on as an intern in January.

Broad Street is a three-mile long road that traverses Pawtucket, Central Falls and Cumberland. Originally called Broad Turnpike, it was built around 1810 by the Wilkinson brothers, mill owners who used the road to transport goods from their mills to the docks in Pawtucket, according to Klyberg.

Because it crosses through what was once the heart of the textile industry in Rhode Island, Broad Street and the communities it serves have always attracted immigrants, says Summer.

From the English, the Scots-Irish to the Portuguese, West Africans and Latin Americans, successive waves of foreigners all got their start somewhere along the banks of the Blackstone.

“Then as now, the area is 40-percent foreign born. Ten to fifteen percent of the households have at least one person who is foreign born,” he says. “It’s really no different at all.”

LA CASA DEL PUEBLO is a reflection of the latest wave of immigrants.

A Mexican restaurant owned by brothers Domingo and Alfonso Moras, it opened two years ago as the Town House, which is the English translation of its current name. It is the brothers’ first crack at running a restaurant.

Domingo and Alfonso originally envisioned the restaurant as an American-style diner serving eggs, burgers and sandwiches, the items that Alfonso says he learned to cook in his nearly 20 years as a short-order cook at eateries from T.G.I. Fridays in Warwick to the Bagel Gourmet on Providence’s East Side.

But the demand for authentic Mexican food in Central Falls was great, and within three months of their opening, the owners tweaked their menu, emphasizing traditional fare from their native state of Puebla, though the burgers and eggs are still on the menu.

“We were nine brothers growing up. No sisters, so we all learned how to cook,” says Alfonso.

The restaurant’s interior has a cozy feel.

A former Chinese restaurant, it has a low ceiling and about eight orange-colored dining booths and some countertop seating. Galavision, the popular Miami-based Spanish language station, plays on two small TVs on opposite sides of the restaurant while Mexican folk music plays in the background.

The food comes out buffet style for the boat patrons.

Alfonso has served up five dishes for dinner, including refried beans and yellow rice with vegetables.

There are cheese quesadillas and enchiladas in a mole sauce for vegetarians and chicken and beef huaraches and quesadillas for the meat eaters.

The mole sauce, or mole poblano, is a popular sauce from the Mexican state of Puebla that is prepared with dried chili peppers, almonds, spices, and Mexican chocolate. “It’s between spicy and sweet,” Alfonso explains to the group. “Very tasty.”

Huaraches are flat, handmade corn tortillas topped with refried beans, meat, cheese and green tomatillo sauce that take their name after a type of woven leather sandal popular in Mexico, says Alfonso.

For dessert, Alfonso serves fried ice cream, which is actually strawberry ice cream served atop a piece of fried flour tortilla and topped with a sauce of honey, butter and bits of cracker as well as slices of fresh strawberry.

After the meal, patrons file into the kitchen to take a peek at where their food was made. They check out the dry area where the restaurant stores the variety of chilis used in its dishes and the wooden press that cooks use to make tortillas.

As the tour winds down at about 9 p.m., the group from URI lingers near the doorway.

Not one of them, they admit, had been in the restaurant before this night. There are thank yous to Alfonso and the waitresses for their hard work and excellent food, and promises to come back and to tell others about the restaurant.

Then the few still with drinks raise up a toast to their soon to be former coworker. A proper sendoff.Future Tours

The Broad Street International Food Tour continues tonight with a seafood dinner at the Valley Park Cervejaria and Marisqueira, on 17 Mill St. in Cumberland. Tickets are sold out, but future dates are still available and cost $30 for the cruise and dinner (gratuity not included).

For reservations contact the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council at (401) 724-2200 or online at www.broadstreetexperience.com. The remaining dates:

•July 30: China Inn, 285 Main St., Pawtucket

•Aug. 6: Tropical Restaurant (Cape Verdean), 855 Broad St., Central Falls

•Aug. 13: Beirao Café Restaurant (Portuguese), 1374 Broad St., Central Falls

•Aug. 20: Tierras Hispanas (Mexican), 765 Broad St., Central Falls

•Aug. 27: Olly’s Pizza (American), 148 Broad St., Pawtucket (At reduced fare because cruise is canceled )

pmarcelo@projo.com