(LEFT)
CREAM CHICKEN
AND SPINACH
TINY PIES
(RIGHT)
HEIRLOOM
TOMATO,
CART-MADE
BACON, RED
LEAF LETTUCE,
ROASTED
SUNGOLD AIOLI
ON GARLIC
TOAST
PHOTOS BY TRASK BEDORTHA
DELECTABLE DESTINATION
Party Cart turns 28th and Friendly into a culinary corner
BY ALEX NOTMAN
F
or a year, I smelled Party Cart before I tasted
any of its menu. Driving home on 28th
Avenue, I would roll my window down and
stick my nose in the air like a hungry beagle,
catching breezes of braised pork mingling
with sweet puffs of peppermint ice cream
coming from the Red Wagon Creamery cart
that shares the Healthy Pet parking lot. The cart always
had a steady if small stream of patrons, but for some
reason, perhaps due to its less-than-scenic location next
to a power grid, I did not patronize the cart until a friend
persuaded me to meet her there a year after it opened.
After ordering at the counter of the retrofitted
camper, I sat down at one of the three rickety tables,
eyeing my fellow diners’ dishes: hearty sandwiches,
colorful salads, artfully deviled eggs. Then my dish was
delivered: a plump, steaming helping of artichoke bread
pudding. I couldn’t hold each buttery green bite in my
mouth long enough.
Party Cart owners (and wife and husband) Tiffany
Norton and Mark Kosmicki were tired of working for
others and weary of the Eugene scene after years working
in the local food industry. “We wanted to go into business
for ourselves,” Kosmicki says. They agreed on a food cart.
“It’s the lowest overhead,” Norton says. “The easiest.”
“Not the easiest,” says Kosmicki, exchanging a
glance with Norton. They both laugh.
“OK. The easiest if you’re poor,” Norton says.
The partners originally wanted to start their culinary
venture in the food cart mecca of Portland. Then they
began driving around Eugene in search of potential good
locales and found that the best spot for them was a few
blocks from their home, the Healthy Pet parking lot at the
crossroads of 28th Avenue and Friendly Street. “We
approached Healthy Pet and planted a seed in their ear,”
Norton says.
Meanwhile, they were converting what had been the
camper’s “shell of a kitchen” into a legitimate cooking
operation, installing a refrigerator, a sandwich prep
8 CHOW! Fall 2012
PARTY CART OWNERS
TIFFANY NORTON AND MARK KOSCMICKI
station, professional baking equipment and a six-burner
stove and oven. Peering into the cart’s snug interior,
there is not one surface that goes unused, whether it’s
for hanging pans or cooling loaves of bread. They hired
a friend and local artist Athena Wisotsky to paint the
exterior: some dapper foxes hovering around a plate of
steak and eggs. After showing the owners of Healthy Pet
a menu and their camper, Party Cart opened its window
to business in April 2011.
“The only parameters were it had to be local and
food we want to eat,” Kosmicki says of the menu.
Norton researched local farms, growers and food
producers and now they have a list of food vendors that
takes 10 minutes to recite, from Laughing Stock Farm
(pork, chicken and duck eggs) to the Corner Market
(vegetables).
Each week they change their menu according to
what’s in season and available, whether that’s pork
shoulder or dollar-a-pound zucchini, and although
regular diners can probably detect common threads in
the cart’s menu — wheat berry, biscuits, braised meats
— there are rarely any repeat dishes. When pressed to
name one signature flavor, Norton and Kosmicki agree
on a bacon and kimchi combo, inspired by a dinner at
New York City’s Momofuku. The only other constant
of the menu is the pricing.
“We try not to have anything over $10,” Norton says.
“Affordable, local organic,” says Kosmicki, nodding.
“Clean food shouldn’t be for rich people.”
Party Carty, to their surprise, reignited their love for
Eugene. Their vendors and customers were becoming
their friends, and one pair of regulars, Emily and Stuart
Phillips of Red Wagon Creamery, became business
neighbors, setting up their apple-red cart in the same lot.
Norton and Kosmicki decided that coffee would be
complementary to the sweet and savory business pod
and, through mutual friends, contacted the owners of the
French press specialty cart Clementines, Beverly Edge
and Holly Chedester. They joined the lot in June.
Although Norton and Kosmicki love the cart life, the
lack of space can be frustrating and limiting. “I run into
Tiffany so much,” Kosmicki says, “at least 15 times a day.”
Looking into the future, they hope to turn their restaurant
on wheels into a “brick and mortar” establishment.
On a recent sunny Sunday morning, I returned to try
Party Cart’s brunch offering with a friend and found
myself ordering more than half the menu: zucchini
pancakes with huckleberry butter syrup; biscuits with
tomato gravy pork loin, tasso and duck egg; fried
polenta with bay shrimp, octopus, kimchi, bacon and
cherry tomatoes; potato wedges fried in lard. Naturally,
everything was eaten. There may be nothing more
satisfying than a full belly and looking down at an
empty plate with the streaked huckleberry purples,
duck-egg oranges and tomato reds of the local land. ■
chow.eugeneweekly.com