Metro

Pedro’s 2 beers — & $338M ticket

TICKETS TO PARADISE: Eagle Liquors clerk Pravin Makodia shows the Powerball tickets at his store yesterday.

TICKETS TO PARADISE: Eagle Liquors clerk Pravin Makodia shows the Powerball tickets at his store yesterday. (Stephen Yang)

An immigrant father of five who buys lottery tickets and a couple of beers at the same Passaic, NJ, store every day is the sole winner of the $338.3 million Powerball jackpot.

“I can’t believe it. I’m overwhelmed,” Pedro Quezada, 44, of Passaic, said yesterday as he claimed the fourth-biggest prize in Powerball history. “I just can’t get over it.”

The Dominican-born Quezada beat the 175-million-to-1 odds when he bought the winning ticket Saturday at Eagle Liquors. Using the Quick Pick option, he hit all five numbers and the Powerball.

Struggling with debt for years, “I was praying so much for this,” said Quezada, who lives in a rundown third-floor apartment on a dead-end block next to a highway. “I’m just giving thanks to God.”

Quezada, who came to America 26 years ago, worked in a factory until 2006, when he opened his own bodega, which sits a short distance from the lucky liquor store.

Quezada’s bodega, which is run by his 23-year-old son, Casiano, doesn’t sell lottery tickets, apparently because he never applied for a license. But he regularly plays at Eagle Liquors.

“For the last three years, he would come here every day between 7:30 and 8 p.m. to buy Lotto tickets and two or three bottles of [Corona] beer,’’ said Felix Ramirez, an employee at Eagle Liquors.

Earlier yesterday, lottery officials said they knew the store had sold the winning ticket but didn’t know who bought it.

Apparently, neither did Quezada, until he came into the store after 4 p.m.

“He didn’t know he won when he came in because he stopped to check the board,” Ramirez recalled.

“He was shocked and emotional. He said, ‘It’s me!’ ”

Officials confirmed the ticket was the only winner in the 42 states that offer Powerball.

Quezada said he hadn’t decided how to spend the cash, which would come to $152 million if he takes a lump-sum payout.

“I just don’t know,” he said, but indicated he would help his family, as well as the community.

One sister, Paula Quezada, 32, said she had joked with him yesterday morning that he should check his lottery numbers.

After Pedro realized he had the winning ticket, he called his mother and shouted, “We won! We won! We’re not gonna be poor anymore!”

His wife of 10 years, Ines Sanchez, said the ticket was an answer to their prayers.

“We’re hardworking people,” she said at their home. “We always struggled.”

Casiano said he was making a sandwich at the family store when his dad called with the good news at 4:30 p.m. — and that he didn’t want to close the store and lose business until his friends convinced him to.

The new lottery millionaire has three daughters, 5, 17 and 10, and two sons, a 15-year-old in addition to Casiano. He also has five brothers and two sisters.

A public-record search shows he has been slapped with about 10 liens totaling more than $25,000 between 1998 and 2011.

Eagle Liquors owner Sunil Seth, 51, said, “People in the neighborhood are very happy and excited’’ over Pedro’s turn of luck

“People in the neighborhood could use some help,” Seth said.

Eladia Vazquez, who lives across the street from Quezada, said of the winners, “They deserve it because they are hardworking people.”