Call it a sign of the economy. Call it a part of Downtown's urban renaissance. Call it a smart dining idea. Whatever the driving force behind it, there's no denying that Milwaukee's Water and Wisconsin hot dog vendors is seeing some curbside competition lately.
There are late-night sausages on Old World 3rd Street, Satellite Crepes for breakfast and post-bar pizza trucks. The latest "street food" to roll into town are the Pita Brothers, otherwise knows as real-life brothers Vijay and Manoj Swearingen.
With a focus on sustainability and fresh food, Pita Brothers operate out of an electric vehicle built by a company called GEM, a division of Chrysler. It's a low-speed machine that tops out at about 25 miles per hour, but this isn't the kind of car that's got a need for speed. In fact, it's much more advantageous for it to stay put, as it does daily over the lunch hour (11 a.m.-2 p.m.) at the Third Ward's Catalano Square.
The Pita Brothers travel from their National Avenue kitchen headquarters to their desired locale -- most days it's Catalano Square, though they've been known to venture out into other neighborhoods and the occasional summer festival, alerting customers via Facebook and Twitter -- producing zero emissions, and when they park, a generator kicks in to keep the mobile kitchen powered up to produce fresh food to order.
The custom-build hybrid truck can run about 15 miles on a charge, which is enough to get it out for lunch and back again to charge over night. Vijay says it's the first of its kind in the state.
But it's not the pita mobile itself that's gaining attention; it's the homemade falafel, hummus and tahini sauce, followed closely by the chicken bacon and ranch wrap. For $4.75 and $5.50, respectively, the sandwiches are a great deal for what proves to be a quick, hearty meal.
Barbecue chicken, meatball marinara and veggies with hummus round out the menu, but no matter which sandwich you chose, the Lebanese flatbread they use is key. It's large enough to safely and snugly encase the ingredients, but thin enough to bite through without making a mess down your shirt on the way back to the office.
"(The bread) is simple," Vijay explains. "It acts as a nice container so people can focus on what's inside of it. We wanted something that would work well for a portable sandwich, so people can take it and walk while they eat it."
Each sandwich is completed with choice of vegetables and sauces: tahini, buttermilk ranch, spicy ranch, mayo, cream caesar and sweet barbecue. And during the summer, Pita Brothers offers 100 percent fruit smoothies made with fresh fruit puree to help wash it all down.
As only a two-man operation, Vijay and Manoj have little time for much else than the noon time crowds they serve Monday through Saturday, though they say late-night noshing is probably in their not-so-distant future. But for now, the Pita Brothers are a pleasant way to spend your lunch break.
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
