The fifth season of Mark’s Carts should be in full swing by now. Mark Hodesh sold Downtown Home & Garden to Kelly Vore in 2015, but he still owns his namesake collection of food carts and the weather-flexible Bill’s Beer Garden in the DTHG parking lot. Returning this summer are El Manantial, Simply Spanish, Hut-K, and Great Grilled Sandwiches. New carts are Pita Cruiser with falafel, gyros, shawarma, smoothies, and Seafood Driven with “chowders, lobster rolls, and I hope clam rolls,” Hodesh emails, applying some light lobbying (he ran an inn in Castine, Maine, for a couple of decades). Hours of individual carts are determined by the owners, but lunch is 11:30 to 2:30-ish, and dinner 5 to 9-ish. The beer garden has limited hours in April, but by May, weather permitting, will be open for dinner and evening hours every day except Monday.
Speaking of hours: Hodesh confirms the rumor that he still comes to the store at 3 a.m. every day to let Wallace the cat out. But is he getting up or going to bed? Neither, he writes. Catlike himself, “I’m on a twenty-four-hour schedule. For me sleep is a string of naps. First one is usually around 8 a.m., I like one at noon too, and of course there is the 4 p.m. at home in my chair. I sleep sitting up, leaning, lying down, and in bed too. Weird, but I’m sleep deprived.”
