ALBANY — Almost five years after the start of the most high-profile First Amendment legal battle in the history of Capital Region cuisine, the food truck known as the Wandering Dago will sell its braised short rib sandwiches, tater tots and shakes on the Empire State Plaza starting Monday.

In 2013, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration banned the Wandering Dago from serving its wares on the Plaza, a decision the state Office of General Services later acknowledged was due to the truck's name. While "dago" is generally understood to be a slur on Italians and others (derived from the common name "Diego"), the truck's owner Andrea Loguidice has insisted its moniker was intended as nothing more than a tribute to her ancestors, laborers who were paid "as the day goes."

"Andrea's very pleased that after several years of struggle, she'll be able to sell her fine goods on the Plaza," said Loguidice's attorney, George Carpinello of Boies Schiller Flexner.

The Wandering Dago filed suit in August 2013 against several employees and leaders of the state Office of General Services as well as the New York Racing Association, which ejected the truck from the Saratoga Race Course in July of that year after receiving a monitory email from a Cuomo administration official. NYRA, which at the time of the Wandering Dago's ouster was under state control, quietly reached a $68,500 settlement with the truck's owners in January 2015.

While a March 2016 decision by U.S. District Judge Mae D'Agostino granted summary judgment to the OGS defendants — including Commissioner RoAnn Destito and Executive Deputy Commissioner Joe Rabito — the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit concluded in January 2018 that summary judgment should have gone to the Wandering Dago.

"It is undisputed that defendants denied WD's applications solely because of its ethnic slur branding," the court said in a 32-page decision that called the state's action unconstitutional "viewpoint discrimination."

The Second Circuit's decision was based in large part on the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2017 decision in Matal v. Tam, in which the leader of an Asian-American rock group called The Slants was initially denied the chance to register the band's name with the U.S. Trademark Office due to its ironic use of another offensive ethnic epithet.

While the plaintiffs in the Wandering Dago suit dropped their claim seeking damages from the state, the Cuomo administration — meaning taxpayers — will be required to cover their legal bills. Carpinello said they are still in negotiations to determine the final cost.

Loguidice, who now operates the truck as part of her Rogue Hospitality catering business, filed a separate lawsuit in late 2014, claiming that she was fired from her job as an attorney for the state Department of Environmental Conservation due to her connection to the truck.

DEC officials dismissed her after it came to light that the truck had been hired by a General Electric contractor to cater an event on GE's Niskayuna campus; agency officials said DEC's work on GE's PCB dredging project on the Hudson should have raised a red flag for Loguidice.

The DEC-Loguidice suit remains bogged down in legal wrangling about the scope of the questions state attorneys are obligated to answer in depositions.

The truck's placement on the Plaza will put it in view of Cuomo's office on the south side of the Capitol.

A few weeks after the filing of the lawsuit, the governor called the name "obviously offensive."

"I think if you had a state official that didn't see the name 'Wandering Dago' and a buzzer went off or a flag was raised, then you would say that person was asleep at the switch, right?," Cuomo told reporters in September 2013.

On Thursday morning, Loguidice was at the Plaza checking out the truck's designated location in front of Building 3 on the west side of the reflecting pool. She said she was not concerned that the Wandering Dago's presence might attract protesters.

"It's their right as Americans," she said. "We all have a First Amendment right to freedom of speech."

cseiler@timesunion.­com - 518-454-5619 - @CaseySeiler