Shawn Carter had built a successful catering business serving a worldwide variety of foods and flavors when he decided to try out the Downtown State College Farmers Market in April 2022.
Carter, a Penn State alumnus, remembered walking through the market on his way to campus and thought his cooking could add something new to the offerings. Carter chose tacos, a family favorite, but with a twist. His stand wouldn’t offer traditional tacos but instead a revolving collection of flavors inspired by his family, hometown, travels, and everything in between.
He found success selling chicken, brisket, and lamb tacos, along with quesadillas and various specials. He says the farmers market gave him an opportunity to explore different concepts—something he continues today at his now permanent downtown restaurant, Carter’s Table.
“If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here,” he says, sitting in his restaurant’s dining room.
Carter fell in love with cooking at his first job. He was a dishwasher at a country club in New Castle, alongside his brother, who worked as a sous chef. Eventually, his brother asked him if he wanted to learn how to cook.
“I immediately loved it,” Carter says. “You’ll hear me reference God a lot because I think he gave me a gift to use. Like sometimes you’re good at something and you don’t understand why or how.”
Carter worked a variety of jobs in the food service industry starting in high school and continuing after college. He eventually left the industry to help start Team Blue Hand Wash and Detail, working there for more than six years, followed by a brief stint in real estate. But nothing compared to working in the culinary world.
“I realized that I needed to get back into what I love,” he says.
Carter’s wife suggested he start catering. He cooked for their family, and everyone loved the food he made for parties. He began catering in 2018, leaning on his industry experiences, cultural background, and a little bit of trial and error to create his success.
He credits his family’s Lebanese, Italian, and African American backgrounds, as well his hometown, for their cultural and food influences when designing his menus.
“I’m going to make people food that I like to eat,” he says.
By spring 2022, the business had grown and Carter wanted to test out the farmers market. He enjoys being out with the community and talking with people, so the weekly event seemed like a good fit.
He spent the summer at the market, and when Penn State students returned in August, Carter says business really took off.
“Students are really powerful in how they spread the word. Once it started to hit, it was crazy,” Carter says. “I would just stand there in awe of the line and how it started to where it was.”
The popularity led Carter to open a permanent storefront for Carter’s Table in mid-January 2023.
The restaurant offers tacos and quesadillas with an everchanging twist of flavors. Popular menu items include tacos of roasted pork, chili-lime grilled chicken, lamb barbacoa, and brisket tinga, all served with pickled onions, jalapeño crema, and cotija cheese.
The meats are seasoned to perfection and melt in diners’ mouths. The added crunch of pickled onions and carrots pairs well with Carter’s unique sauces, all nestled in a crispy toasted tortilla.
Carter likes to play with flavors and ingredients. He keeps shelves of cookbooks in the dining room for inspiration.
“I love reading cookbooks,” he says. “I’m always looking for new things.”
An Asian five-spice beef taco is featured on the menu, along with daily specials like Thai barbecue chicken, Cajun shrimp, and even mushroom tacos, all of which patrons are eager to try.
“The tacos here are unlike anything they’ve tasted,” he says. “The flavors are from all over.”
Carter knows it can be hard to choose just one flavor, so he offers a flight of three tacos for $13.50. He says pork is the most popular, along with the chili-lime chicken.
While he hopes to start catering and selling at the farmers market again, right now the restaurant is Carter’s top priority. The Ambassador Square restaurant does offer a piece of the farmers market via a mural. While working on Locust Lane, Carter says he would have repeat customers, including Joe Beam, a Penn State School of Visual Arts graduate. Beam is an artist (@boejeam on Instagram) and his work caught Carter’s eye.
“If I have a place, I’m going to have you do something in it,” he recalls saying to Beam, while preparing his regular order of pork tacos. “I had no clue I was going to have a place.”
When the opportunity to open his storefront arose, Carter contacted Beam to create a mural. A bustling scene with Carter’s Table, Old Main, the Nittany Lion shrine, and more adorns a wall in the dining room. Carter says there are a few hidden things for diners to look for, including a nod to his roots at the farmers market. T&G
Hannah Pollock is a freelance writer in State College.
