It was seven years ago that Peruvian Brothers first opened its doors as a food truck operation in the District, eventually growing to three trucks. Now, actual Peruvian brothers Giuseppe and Mario Lanzone are opening up their first brick-and-mortar spot inside La Cosecha, a Latin American market that’s been in a perpetual soft-opening phase since September.

Fans of the food truck will find items they’re familiar with, like empanadas and pan con chicharrón, when the restaurant opens on February 1, along with new dishes. Most notably, they’ve added Peruvian rotisserie chicken, which customers often ask for at the food trucks. “My brother has done a tremendous job mimicking the same flavor that we had in Peru,” Giuseppe Lanzone says. There will also be yucca fries, sauteed veggies, quinoa salad, and—courtesy of their new liquor license—alcoholic beverages, including a slushy pisco sour.

“We’re very excited to keep expanding our work and keep sharing our culture with everybody else. That’s the main thing, that’s why we do this. I mean, we love to cook, but we love for people to come and say ‘hey, I tried your food and now I really want to go to Peru,'” Lanzone says.

The Lanzones moved from a small coastal town in Peru called La Punta to McLean, Virginia on October 5, 1997. Giuseppe was 14 and Mario was 12. Even as kids, Giuseppe says his younger brother was always a cook—the elder Lanzone would often delay his breakfast until his younger brother, a later riser, woke up and made them both something to eat.

“He was always really into cooking. He was always very into creating new dishes with a creative and innovative twist,” Lanzone says. “He never gets it right the first time, but he’ll try and try and try until he gets it perfect every single time.”

The two went off in separate directions as they got older, Giuseppe pursuing a career as a competitive rower, earning a spot on the U.S. Olympic crew team twice. Mario, meanwhile, traveled around the Mediterranean as the captain of a large sailboat (where, Giuseppe says, everyone always asked him to cook).

When the brothers both found themselves back in McLean, they decided to open up a business together, joining the city’s then-nascent food truck scene. They tried their hand first at health-food options before realizing that the menu wasn’t lighting their fire.

“We want to eat healthy, but we’re not passionate about eating healthy. We’re passionate about Peruvian food,” Lanzone says. “We miss Peruvian food. We miss going to the market with my dad or my mom and eating a pan con chicharrón.”

So they started from scratch and built a menu around the foods they remembered—in particular, pan con chicharrón, a fried pork tenderloin sandwich. Soon other sandwiches were added, and that’s what the business has largely become known for. “We weren’t focusing on luxurious, gourmet small plates. No. We wanted a sandwich that was going to fill you up and taste great, just like what we had back home,” Lanzone says. The brothers also started selling hot sauces by the bottle and empanadas.

The food truck quickly became one of the most successful in the city. It has won several “best food truck” awards from the Washingtonian Magazine and Washington City Paper. The new brick-and-mortar location at La Cosecha is both a culmination of all their success and a gamble in itself.

The Latin American market from Edens was originally slated to open in June 2019. It didn’t actually open until October, and even then a majority of the promised vendors still hadn’t managed to open their doors, including Peruvian Brothers. One high-profile restaurant, Amparo Fondita by Chef Christian Irabién, has now pulled out of the project entirely.

Still, Serenata, a bar from the owner of Colada Shop, has proved fairly successful at drawing customers, and Thursday night salsa classes have started gaining traction. A much-anticipated fine dining Colombian restaurant, ElCielo, is looking at a tentative April opening (the restaurant is currently offering a tasting menu in the market, but the large restaurant space is still under construction). There’s still no timeline for the other vendors, which include Panamanian coffee roaster Café Unido and La Casita, a fast casual pupusería.

Peruvian Brothers is located at 1280 4th St NE inside La Cosecha Latin American Market. It will be open Thursdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sundays 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The new location is officially launching on February 1 with a daylong party starting at 11 a.m., co-hosted by the Embassy of Peru.