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Bad luck devours South Side food stand
Eric Heyl is a Tribune-Review staff writer. He can be reached via e-mail or 412-320-7857.
Most people probably don't know Moeun, 39, or her husband, Dan McSwiggen, 46, by name. But almost any participant in Carson Street's nightlife during the past decade would recognize their eatery.
They operated out of a small truck parked in a sliver of a vacant lot between Nick's Fat City nightclub and a former Rite-Aid drugstore. Much to the irritation of nearby restaurants, the club crowd devoured their homemade shish kebab, egg rolls and wonton.
They worked from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. "three nights a week in the winter, four in the summer and every night of the South Side Street Spectacular," Dan McSwiggen said yesterday. "We had devoted, loyal customers who came by to eat in the rain, snow, wind, whatever."
No more. The food stand closed Saturday. The truck remains in the lot, but only temporarily.
It won't start.
The genesis of the stand's ruin occurred about two years ago, when Rite-Aid left the four-story building on Carson. Ed Goldstein owned the century-old structure and the small vacant parcel separating it from Nick's Fat City. He decided it was time to sell.
Goldstein found a buyer in a partnership headed by South Side developer Don Carlson, which bought the building in December and began renovating it. The first floor has been leased to a steakhouse opening later this year.
Carlson didn't return calls yesterday. McSwiggen said he was told the restaurant lease includes a provision prohibiting any other food vendors from operating on the property and the vacant lot.
McSwiggen said he was notified by the building owners on May 29 he would have to vacate. On Monday, the power line from the building that provided electricity to the truck was disconnected.
"We got the bum's rush," McSwiggen said, although there appears no compelling reason for the food stand's immediate closure. A peek inside the new restaurant yesterday revealed a floor and bare walls.
No one will be firing up the hibachi there anytime soon.
Although it's apparently not to be, McSwiggen believes the cookery could comfortably coexist with the steakhouse.
"The steakhouse will probably be a place where people cut business deals or a couple gaze longingly into each other's eyes," he said. "If you're standing in our line, you're dealing with drunks, foul language, bad weather and smoke from the grill. It's a different experience."
One the McSwiggens hope to re-create in a new locale.
They would prefer to stay in their home neighborhood of the South Side, which could prove difficult. Save for the lot they no longer can use, there aren't many places along Carson Street capable of accommodating a mobile food vendor.
McSwiggen said his wife of 15 years is taking the closing hard. He said it's probably the most difficult time she has endured since arriving in Pittsburgh from Thailand after escaping Pol Pot's brutal Cambodian regime.
"She is completely distraught," McSwiggen said. "I do some roofing, but (the cookery) represents a significant part of our income. This is how we feed our family."
After a decade, the South Side suddenly is out of streetside shish kebab -- and the McSwiggens suddenly are out of luck.
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