Schnitzelwich, one of Portland's oldest destination food carts, closed Wednesday, Aug. 30, after 13 years downtown, owners Karel and Monika Vitek told The Oregonian/Oregonlive.com.

The Viteks opened their Czech food cart, then called Tabor, back in 2004, when rents were cheap and spaces in Portland's original parking lot pods were easy to find. The cart's Austro-Hungarian food drew both local and national media attention -- Bon Appetit once said the horseradish-spiked breaded pork schnitzelwich might be the greatest sandwich on Earth -- and laid the groundwork for Portland's nationally recognized food cart scene.

Tabor appeared in our inaugural guide to the city's 10 best carts alongside an elite group of early standouts such as Koi Fusion, Addy's Sandwich Bar, The Big Egg, Nong's Khao Man Gai, Moxie RX (now Milk Glass Mrkt), Spella Caffe and more.

"It became apparent that people actually don't know what Czech food is, and we had to start calling ourselves Czech-German-Hungarian," Karel Vitek says.

"But we also discovered in the beginning that our customers were brave," Monika Vitek says, "because they looked and they said, 'Oh, Czech food, I don't know what that is, Ok, let me have one.'"

On a visit to the cart earlier this year, I watched Karel brown 10-inch potato pancakes polka-dotted with thin-sliced kielbasa while extolling the virtues of his kombucha-based Stinging Nettle hot sauce. (I bought a bottle to take home.) Turns out, the increasing popularity of that sauce, along with Monika's growing interest in pottery and the couple's now seven-year-old daughter, convinced the Viteks to sell the cart and focus on their catering business.

New owner Toan Ngo plans to serve desserts from the cart, including ice cream, fresh-baked pastries and Liege-style Belgian waffles, starting in mid-September.

Above, check out a video of the Viteks during one of their last days at the cart.

-- Michael Russell