If you haven't heard of the The Halal Guys, then you haven't been out street-food hunting in New York, where halal carts are a longstanding tradition, and where a couple of guys turned their cart into two brick-and-mortar locations that became the stuff of late-night cravings far and wide. As LAist reported yesterday, via FoodBeast, word just came the Halal Guys are franchising, and locations are planned in SoCal later this year. Then today FoodBeast found out that, actually, some franchisees have some immediate plans to open locations here in SF, in Berkeley, and in Las Vegas too.

They say "We plan to open three stores within one year: One in SF, one at UC Berkeley, and one either on the Las Vegas strip or in Downtown Las Vegas. We are looking at sites now."

So, what is this halal stuff? Well, let me explain.

It's street food, kind of along the lines of Middle Eastern barbecue, in a pretty simple formula: specially seasoned beef gyro meat, or shredded chicken, (or falafel) served over rice with their special white sauce. But given that we don't have a ton of great Greek/Mediterranean spots making good gyros or platters around the Bay Area, these guys might fill an important niche — not to mention drawing legions of recent transplants from New York who dearly miss this stuff.

We'll update you when we hear of any specifics about a location.