Kowalski’s Street Eats looks to build off its late-night food cart brand

About six weeks ago, Barry Kowal and his brother, Aaron, branched out from their Tropical Smoothie Café location in Price LeBlanc Toyota and started their own food brand. The siblings nodded to their family’s Polish roots with a downtown food cart named Kowalski’s Street Eats. The cart runs Thursday-Saturday nights, 6 p.m.-2 a.m., on the corner of Third Street and Florida Boulevard across from Schlittz and Giggles.

The food is heavy on Southern cuisine, featuring takes on boudin, pulled pork and nachos. The family’s Polish roots will come into play in the future, Kowal says, after the brand has been built and the brothers can hopefully create a larger, more casual fine dining restaurant.

For now, they have been trying to cater to crowds downtown and in Tigerland. So far, business has been going well, Kuwal says.

“So far, we have a cult following in the late night hours,” he says. “Sometimes, taxis will swing in with customers, and we’ll sell food to them. Hopefully, we can establish this and add a little class to street food, then go from there.” —Matthew Sigur