K-Plate Korean BBQ, which started life as a food cart on the RPI campus that was run by two RPI students before becoming one of the original tenants in Troy Kitchen food court, is moving to its own storefront. Co-owner John Goh tells me K-Plate will be moving a couple of blocks away, to 75 Fourth St., previously site of a daycare next to the Uncle Sam’s Good Natural Products store.

K-Plate will be open at Troy Kitchen through the end of this month, when its lease expires, then be dark for at least a month during the build-out of the new space. An opening by mid- to late April is projected, Goh tells me.

“We never thought it would get this big this fast. We were just doing food we liked at a little food cart,” says Goh, 22, who took a break from studying computer science to open K-Plate at Troy Kitchen last March. His co-owner, Kevin Shin, 23, has a degree in mechanical engineering.

Troy Kitchen owner Cory Nelson tells me the duo’s success is illustrative of the incubator model he has for Troy Kitchen: “It’s a place for people that don’t have the capital to open their own place to get started, then they can move out to an empty storefront in downtown Troy,” Nelson says.

Nelson is mulling options to replace Troy Kitchen and the creperie that closed at the end of January. He says he is in talks with operators looking to open places that feature pommes frites, halal food and chopped cheese sandwiches, a cult item in New York City that is said to be the Big Apple’s answer to the Philly cheesesteak.

Troy Kitchen’s other tenants include Mexican and Hawaiian food, sandwiches, a bakery and a bar. Located at 77 Congress St., it is open for lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday, Sunday for brunch.

What would you like to see replace K-Plate at Troy Kitchen? Pommes frites

Halal food

Chopped-cheese sandwiches

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