A restaurant specializing in Japanese-inspired street food is being developed for an opening in late November or early December at Fourth and Liberty streets in Troy, part of the hip food scene’s slow southerly creep along Fourth Street. (The location, long-ago home to Casale’s Tavern, is a couple of blocks from The Shop and Superior Merchandise.)

Called The Little Rice Ball, the restaurant is the first venture as proprietor for JP Tucci, an Averill Park native who lives in Troy and has worked at restaurants including the Crooked Lake House, The Shop and the former Troy location of Bombers Burrito Bar. Tucci, 25, who has a bachelor’s degree in environmental biology, said he enjoyed the environmental aspects of his major but not the science and wanted to open a restaurant instead. He intends to showcase sustainable ingredients, minimize waste and use of plastic and otherwise demonstrate environmental awareness whenever possible in the operation of the restaurant.

The menu will include onigiri, the snack from which the restaurant takes its name; takoyaki; meat-filled and vegetarian gyoza; and an assortment of other savory and sweet items. The restaurant will also have a beer and wine license.

Tucci expects to hire six or seven employees to staff the 750-square-foot space. He declined to discuss a budget for the project. The investor behind The Little Rice Ball is Matt Baumgartner, founder and former owner of Bombers and current principal owner of Wolff’s Biergarten, The Olde English Pub & Pantry and June Farms. Baumgartner tells me it is the first restaurant in which he has invested that he will not be involved in operationally. “I was just so impressed with his concept that I wanted to help him out, to be a part of it,” Baumgartner says.