All day long at the Petro truck stop in Gary, Indiana, drivers pull in, dismount from their cabs, and saunter lazily across the long blacktop toward a grassy patch next to the parking lot entrance. Muttering into Bluetooth earpieces, they approach the steps of a raised semitrailer painted bright yellow, announcing itself to the parking lot with the words “Balkan Grill Restaurant.” Inside, a stark cargo area contains a few high-top tables, a drink cooler filled with bottled water and the Slovenian soft drink Cockta, and a window that separates customers from the kitchen, the register, and Momocilo “Momo” Bogdanovich.
I wanted to hear more about how he started and grew his business, but I could tell he and his driver wanted to get back to their pljeskavica, Serbia’s gift to the burger arts. It’s usually built with a char-grilled beef patty the size of something you could wind up and throw for Olympic gold, tucked in the pocket of a warm, pillowy flatbread called lepinja, which looks something like a pita on growth hormone. It’s served with a fresh, crunchy coleslaw (kupus salata), a chile-tinged orange feta goat cheese spread (urnebes), and a white gob of kajmak, a lighter, buttery white cheese spread. If you’ve any sense at all, you smear the cheeses on your patty, pile it with cabbage and onions, and go to town.
When he opened, Bogdanovich had identified an ideal patch of real estate to park his kitchen, just south of the I-80/94 off-ramp and six miles from where I-90 and I-65 converge. There’s a Love’s truck stop competing with Petro right across Grant Street. Five days a week from 10 AM to 10 PM, drivers arriving from points all across the map amble over from Love’s or neighboring Champ’s Liquors swinging plastic bags in their hands. These guys know they can skip the Taco Bell, the Denny’s, and the Iron Skillet all squeezed inside Petro, and instead fuel up on the food they were raised on. v
3101 Grant St., Gary IN 219-670-5563 facebook.com/balkangrillcompany
