XPL Halal Food Cart: Sheepshead Bay’s New Street Meat

(XPL Halal Food cart seen at 4 a.m. midweek; Photo by Ray Johnson)

Businesses near the corner of Sheepshead Bay Road and Avenue Z (across the street from Gothic Press) have been complaining about the latest addition to the intersection: a 24-hour food vending cart.

While such food carts are commonplace and highly acclaimed for bringing taste to street food in Manhattan, on Sheepshead Bay Road, they stick out like a sore thumb — leaving some to wonder whether they’d seen a food-vending cart anywhere in Sheepshead Bay, ever.

The operators of this XPL Halal Food cart is under watch for a number of issues. Residents want to know if the cart is operating safely with the butane tank resting near the light pole and if the extra garbage being dumped on top of the residential garbage is being left there by the vendor. They’re, also, not so sure as if the neighborhood mid-morning traffic can justify having a 24-hour food service cart at the corner near where there is a coop building and a bus stop.

XPL Halal vending won the Midtown Lunch website’s taste test for Best Rice, in their “Street-Meat-Palooza: A 13 Cart Chicken/Lamb Over Rice Showdown” last year.

So, there will probably be quite a few hungry residents on their way home from the subway station, who would like to get a taste.