Food for thought: Little Italy block party largest yet for Tortaboyz

Moudy Husseini and Luis Guerra have been best friends since they were five.

Throughout their adult lives, both Husseini and Luis followed their dreams in the restaurant business, though separately. When the stars aligned in 2021, towards the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two of them and Luis’ brother, Sergio Guerra, opened Tortaboyz, a food truck business near a large Preston Street parking lot.

Fast forward to 2026. While the trio had long moved on from their days managing a parking-lot food truck business — instead establishing a storefront for Tortaboyz at 354A Preston St. (also in Little Italy ) — the “Tortaboyz” found themselves hosting a sixth annual block party on Saturday in Little Italy’s behemoth of a parking lot where their food truck was located not long ago.

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“All three of us kind of grew up in low-income neighbourhoods where we never really experienced things like this,” Husseini said as he glanced up at hundreds of attendees with more continuing to flood in.

The big picture for Tortaboyz, they said, was always rooted in bringing the community together.

Admission to the cookout was free, so the meals themselves represented the only costs for attendees, and the Tortaboyz said they didn’t invite restaurants to participate that they wouldn’t eat at themselves. That was part of the appeal, according to them.

“We’re huge foodies,” Husseini said. “We bring restaurants that we want to eat at.”

This year, the gates to the festival opened around 12 noon on Saturday, Aug. 29, at the Adult High School parking lot on Preston Street for what was their biggest block party yet.

The location has changed each year. In the first year, there was space to accommodate only 200 people, Husseini said.