Palestinian family plans to bring a food truck park to Water Street with a diverse dining lineup

Jordyn Noennig, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Updated ·2 min read
Brothers Murad and Mazin Hamdan and their cousin Ramzey Huneidi plan to open Pali Park, a food truck, at 1652 N. Water St. by the end of summer.
Brothers Murad and Mazin Hamdan and their cousin Ramzey Huneidi plan to open Pali Park, a food truck, at 1652 N. Water St. by the end of summer.

Two Palestinian brothers and their cousin are planning to bring a food truck park to 1652 N. Water St., with room for about eight trucks that will offer a diverse array of food.

The food truck park, named Pali Park, is from Murad and Mazin Hamdan and their cousin Ramzey Huneidi, who came up with the idea. The brothers own Señor Gordito's and Chubby's Cheesesteaks, which has three locations around Milwaukee.

"We've been driving past that spot for 20 years now and we were eying it for a long time, and we were like, let's do a food park here," Mazin Hamdan said.

"We want to call it Pali Park, which is short for Palestine," he said. "We're all first-generation born, and we have family in the West Bank and Gaza. With everything going on there, we thought it was important to represent our people."

The starting lineup of food trucks will include Señor Gordito's, a Middle Eastern truck, a Cuban truck, and a deli truck with sandwiches and bagels. They are looking for three to four more vendors to fill the space.

They are contemplating whether they will keep the building that is onsite, which was home to Moto-Scoot for many years.

"We're going to have a bar either in a shipping container, or the building, and tables, seating and a lot of lighting," Mazin Hamdan said.

He said they also were going to excavate a cliff near the back of the property to increase the amount of useable park space.

The park comes after food trucks were temporarily banned on a portion of Nort Water Street last year, just south of where the new food truck park is being proposed.

Alderman Jonathan Brostoff, who represents that area, said that he likes the idea of a food truck park being there, similar to Zocalo, which was the city's first food truck park at 636 S. 6th St. It opened in 2019.

"I love what I've seen with Zocalo and if we can get something like that north, that would excite me," Brostoff said.

Owners plan to open Pali Park sometime in mid-to-late summer.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: A new Milwaukee food truck park, Pali Park, planned for Water Street