Food Cart Pioneers Big-Ass Sandwiches Going Brick and Mortar

The owners are already selling their cart on Craigslist.

Big-Ass Sandwiches will be a food cart no more. Its owners, Lisa and Brian Wood, are leaving the cart to go brick and mortar with a 49-seat restaurant that will include a patio and a full liquor license. 

They announced the news obliquely, in a tweet this morning:


According to the liquor license application they filed, Big Ass plans to move into 5663 NE Glisan St., currently home to the second location of TarBoush Lebanese restaurant. (Lisa Wood acknowledged the filing, but declined comment on the location for now.) 

Big Ass Sandwiches was one of the early and most famous champions of Portland's food cart revolution; their monstrous, carb-loaded, fry-stuffed sandwiches were voted best food cart in Portland in a 2010 poll of our readers, and has appeared on seemingly every single traveling food show on cable since then, not to mention Jimmy Fallon's Twitter feed. In a trend that gathered speed last year, Big Ass will follow other early food cart stars like Nong's Khao Man Gai and Koi Fusion into more traditional restaurant settings. 

Big-Ass was famously forced to relocate once this year already, after their pod in the central eastside industrial area shut down suddenly, occasioning a move to Carts on Foster pod this February. That cart, though still in operation, is now up for sale on Craigslist.

Want a piece of Portland food cart history? It'll run you a mere $38,000.  

WWeek 2015

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