UPDATE: Carter’s Table will open on Saturday, Jan. 21, at 407 E. Beaver Ave.
Original story:
A popular local food stand and catering business is about to become a downtown State College restaurant.
Carter’s Table is aiming to open this month at 407 E. Beaver Ave., in the former Maki Yaki restaurant location at Ambassador Square, owner Shawn Carter said on Wednesday. Initial hours will be 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Though Carter has cooked up a diverse array of offerings through his catering business, the restaurant’s menu will focus on the flavorful and creative tacos and quesadillas that have earned a large, devoted following since he began selling them from a stand at the Downtown State College Farmers Market last spring.
Carter’s tacos reflect his business’s tagline of “Worldwide Flavors.” His evolving menu has Asian and Greek tacos, Peruvian sauces and recipes that reflect his Lebanese, Italian and African-American heritage. He offers vegetarian options such as roasted chickpea and black bean, and he says he may also serve rice bowls that incorporate the various taco styles.
“Hopefully, stuff you’ve never tasted before you’ll be able to taste here,” he said.
The restaurant, which has on-site metered parking, will offer takeout and dine-in, with counter service and seating for 38.
“As I grow and as I get comfortable with the system here, then I’ll expand into delivery, and probably do catering again with the menu here,” he said.
Carter has worked in and managed local restaurants since he was a student at Penn State, from which he graduated in 2003. He spent several years managing a car wash, then got his real estate license, but realized his passion was in cooking.
“That kind of made me realize I wanted to do something I love,” he said. “I had to kind of get out of the industry to realize I loved it.”
His ultimate goal was to have his own restaurant, but Carter’s Table started as a catering business in 2018 and quickly took off. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, slowed business substantially in 2020 and 2021.
It began to grow again in early 2022, and around the same time, Carter realized the farmers market of which he’d always been a fan could use a hot food offering. So he arranged to set up a food stand, where he served tacos.
“It slowly started to take off, because the [Penn State] students are so powerful the way they spread the word,” he said. “Once they started tasting it, they were loving it.”
The stand continued to grow in notoriety over the summer and when Penn State’s fall session began, it exploded in popularity.
“It was like wildfire. It just blew up,” Carter said. “Whenever I say this stuff, I am not bragging at all. I try to stay humble. I’ve been here a long time; I know a home run when I see it and the line was there all day. We either hit 5:30 and I had to shut down, or I ran out of food. I could barely keep up with it. It was nuts. To go by that stand and see the line, it was incredible.”
One of the fans was Alex Sahakian, president of Highland Holding Group, the company that manages Ambassador Square. Sahakian hired Carter to bring his tacos to an employee appreciation event and was a regular in line for the stand at the farmers market, Carter said.
When Sahakian contacted him about a space opening up in the Ambassador Square plaza, it was an opportunity Carter couldn’t turn down. Carter said he liked the space and the fact that it is located next to other busy establishments like DP Dough, Sowers Harvest Cafe and Insomnia Cookies.
“It’s in a great spot and so I really couldn’t pass this up, even though I know what [running a restaurant] entails,” Carter said as he took a brief break from getting the restaurant ready for opening.
“I couldn’t pass it up. I’m putting the catering on hold and I’m just going to go full steam into this.”
For updates, visit the Carter’s Table Facebook and Instagram accounts.
