Street Food Icons Season 1 (2024)

With over 60 vendors throughout Manhattan, the Nuts 4 Nuts carts are a New York City street food staple. Co-owner Alejandro Rad explains how he brought these Argentinian inspired honey-roasted nuts to America, and how he turned Nuts 4 Nuts into an iconic New York snack.

King of Falafel & Shawarma has been serving mouthwatering Middle Eastern cuisine on the streets of Astoria for the last 17 years. The falafel recipe, with its unique oval shape, is a guarded secret of owner Freddy Zeideia, who mastered it with techniques he learned while growing up in Palestine. After being dissatisfied with the falafel and shawarma offerings in New York, Freddy took matters into his own hands by starting King of Falafel & Shawarma in 2002. Since then, his enterprise has grown, with a truck in Astoria, a cart in Midtown, and a newly opened restaurant in Queens. They also serve chicken over rice, kebabs, meatballs, and other Palestinian specialties. As Freddy would say, "Yeah Baby!"

Fauzia Abdur-Rahman has been serving Jamaican food in the South Bronx from her cart Fauzia's Heavenly Delights, right outside the courthouse, for the last 25 years. The menu changes every day, but there are always two meat options, a fish option and three vegetarian options. With the help of her daughter and husband, Fauzia makes her famous jerk chicken three times a week, and finishes it with her homemade jerk sauce that she makes with pimiento and scotch bonnet peppers, plus a host of other ingredients.

Eli and Oren Halali, the two brothers who founded 2 Bros Pizza, sell slices for a buck. They're known for getting their patrons in and out of the store within ten seconds, and for selling hundreds of pies a day. And they're certainly not the only people in the dollar-slice game in New York City. Ever since the Great Recession in 2008, dollar-slice spots started popping up all over Manhattan because people were in desperate need of a quick and cheap food option. Now there are more than 80 dollar-slice spots on the streets of New York. People gravitate to dollar slice because it's quick, easy, cheap, filling—and the slices themselves are pretty damn good considering the price. But, according to pizza historian Scott Wiener, dollar slices may be on the way out...so get them while you can!

Thiru Kumar, AKA the Dosa Man, has been running NY Dosas, a food cart in Greenwich Village's Washington Square Park, since 2001. His dosas-which are made from fermented rice and lentils, and stuffed with potatoes, vegetables and spicy sauces-have become an international phenomenon. Thiru grew up in Sri Lanka and learned to make South Indian recipes as a child. After he immigrated to the United States in the 90s, he made it his life's work to sell affordable, fresh and vegan dosas to NYU students, professors and other passerby's.

Angel “Piraña” Jimenez has been serving his legendary Puerto Rican lechón, or roasted suckling pig, to the South Bronx for 20 years. He uses a traditional machete to cut his adobo-seasoned pork, before serving it with a roasted banana, pigeon pea rice, and garlic mojito sauce. Angel also makes Puerto Rican classics like beef pastelitos and shrimp mofongo. La Piraña Lechonera is only open on the weekends, as Angel works a day job fixing air conditioning units. Originally from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, Angel immigrated to the United States as a teenager. Now, he’s a legend of his community.

At Divine Flavored Nigerian Food Truck, Godshelter and Bisola Oluwalogbon serve Nigerian cuisine outside the Nigerian Consulate in Midtown Manhattan. Their most popular dish is their goat meat jolloff rice, but they also make local specialities like moimoi, gizzdodo, efo elegusi, and peppered snail. Godshelter and Bisola grew up in Nigeria, and after meeting in Brooklyn in 2006, they started catering to the consulate out of their minivan. They’ve since expanded to a brick-and-mortar location and two food trucks.

Evelia Coyotzi has been selling dollar tamales in Corona, Queens since 2001. Her team starts every day around 9 PM, cooking through the night, so that by 4 AM, they're outside the Junction Boulevard subway stop selling her tamales. Originally from Tlaxcala, Mexico, Evelia makes a large variety of tamales, like tamales con rajas, mole, pollo verde, Oaxacan tamales and more, which she sells for $1-2 apiece out of a pushcart.

Chef Tomas Matsufuji serves up some of Lima’s freshest ceviche at Al Toke Pez in Lima, Peru. Al Toke Pez serves high-quality ingredients at affordable prices in an unpretentious spot where diners can eat-in at the bar or take their food to-go. Along with ceviche, they offer classic Peruvian and Nikkei dishes like arroz con mariscos (fried rice with seafood), fried fish, and leche de tigre. Thomas goes to the fish market every morning to source fresh ingredients with a focus on sustainable buying practices.

Mama Jo has been serving breakfast staples like bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches and omelets and traditional Greek pastries, such as spanakopita and baklava, from her food truck in Midtown Manhattan for over 35 years. She claims to be NYC’s oldest street food vendor and isn’t planning on retiring her legendary food cart any time soon. Mama Jo’s breakfast menu is longer than some dine-in restaurants’ menus, and it’s all done without sacrificing quality. She gets her ingredients fresh every morning in Astoria, Queens, serves food with a smile, and genuinely cares about her customers, really earning the name Mama Jo.

Mo’s Burgers in Harlem is a neighborhood staple. Mo Robinson Jr. has been serving the greater Harlem community for over 30 years, whipping up burgers, hot dogs, sausages, and punch right outside the barbershop that he owns. Everyone in the neighborhood knows Mo, and as one customer said, he's like a "mayor of Harlem."

Dollar Hits is a Filipino street food staple in Los Angeles, specializing in meat skewers that cost $1. Customers can cook pork barbecue and chicken barbecue, along with pork ears, chicken feet, and more on charcoal grills outside the restaurant, located in a nondescript mini-mall in downtown LA's Historic Filipinotown. The three sisters who run Dollar Hits immigrated from Pampanga in the Philippines and have since become local street food legends. Other offerings at Dollar Hits include chicken liver, heart, and intestines, fish and lobster balls, and balut, a fertilized duck egg.