Why did the Polish tacos at Sawa’s Old Warsaw go viral?

Sawa’s Old Warsaw, a 50-year-old institution in Broadview, is probably the last place that you’d think would have gone viral in the past month. As it has since 1973, the massive restaurant offers up a buffet of hearty Polish classics, such as stuffed cabbage, potato pancakes and multiple kinds of pierogi.

But on the second Tuesday of every month, it also serves something called a Polish taco.

I first learned about it when Midwest Modern (@JoshLipnik) posted a photo of a bright red and white sign advertising Polish tacos on the app formerly known as Twitter. The post quickly picked up hundreds of retweets and over a thousand likes.

Many questioned the merits of such a concoction, but I only thought only one thing: I can’t wait to try this. After all, while it’s certainly untraditional in Mexico, Polish tacos do make some sort of sense in Chicago where there are large populations of Polish and Mexican immigrants.

After doing some research, I found out Sawa’s isn’t close to the first place to serve something called a Polish taco. I reached out to José Ralat, taco editor for Texas Monthly, and he’s found evidence of a polaco taco (polaco is Polish in Spanish) in a Texas Folklife Festival brochure from back in the 1970s.

A few restaurants serve Polish tacos right now. I was able to track down a Polish taco at Smokin Q’s BBQ and Beer House, a restaurant in Mayfield, Ohio, which is near Cleveland. This one features a housemade sausage with fries, barbecue sauce, slaw, guacamole and pico de gallo. (The only caveat is this seems inspired by the Polish Boy, a Cleveland specialty featuring fries and barbecue sauce on a kielbasa sausage sandwich.)

The idea for Sawa’s Polish taco actually came to owner Stuart Sawa more than 20 years ago, but he didn’t serve the dish to the public until three years ago. That’s when he heard that a festival in Westchester was looking for food vendors. “My friend told me I should do something, but I didn’t want to just serve Polish sausage on a stick,” Sawa said. “But I said, ‘Listen, I have this Polish taco idea. It would be a potato pancake with kielbasa sausage, sauerkraut and spicy mustard. Why don’t we try this out?’” Realizing the potato pancake would be too greasy to hold, he decided to place all the components on a flour tortilla. It was a hit.

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A year later, Sawa decided to bring the taco to the restaurant. Instead of adding it to the regular menu, he decided to only offer them every second Tuesday of the month. The best part? To help attract people to the bar, Sawa decided to give the tacos away. “We usually serve about 150 tacos each month,” Sawa said. “It’s a way of promoting without spending a lot of money. Now I have a group of people that come in every month. They’ll stick around and have a few drinks.”

I swung by the last event, and sure enough, Sawa was standing outside the restaurant grilling sausages on a small gas grill. Like most guests who showed up, I assumed you ordered the tacos at the bar. But as the bartender explained, all you do is walk outside and wait for Sawa to hand you a taco.

And that’s when I came face to face with my first Polish taco. It definitely wasn’t the prettiest taco I’ve ever encountered. The color palate is mostly limited to numerous shades of brown, with a stripe of dark yellow mustard on top. But it’s hard to fault any of the components here. Each taco starts with a 4-inch flour tortilla that’s topped with a potato pancake. Sawa then adds a grilled Polish sausage, a spoonful of sauerkraut, and a squirt of spicy mustard. The result is salty, juicy, tangy and crispy, with a nice nose-clearing heat from the mustard at the end.

Can this be called a taco? That’s a call you can make yourself. Besides the small flour tortilla, there’s basically nothing traditional to Mexican cuisine here. All I know is that after I finished one, I immediately wanted another one.

If you’re interested, visit Sawa’s Old Warsaw on Nov. 14, from 5-8 p.m. I wouldn’t wait much longer if I were you. Sawa said he’s looking to sell the business. “I’m 63 years old and I want to retire,” Sawa said. “I have to sell the building and I’ll sell my name and recipes too.”

Sawa’s Old Warsaw, 9200 W. Cermak Road, Broadview; 708-343-9040; sawasoldwarsaw.com

nkindelsperger@chicagotribune.com