Por Frank Sabatini Jr.

It was a rare case of eating dessert before our meal, although I’m betting we weren’t the first visitors at StreetCar Merchants to dine in reverse.

Known for its various takes on fried chicken, the four-month-old eatery manages to also enchant anyone with an appetite for donuts, particularly the kind that break a few rules in their shapes and flavors and taunt you with their kaleidoscopic frostings the second you walk in. Good luck passing one up when waiting the 20 minutes it takes before your fried-to-order bird arrives.

StreetCar is the brainchild of business partners Ron Suel, a native of Louisiana, and Ravae Smith, originally from Kansas. The menu commingles their family recipes and has come to include decent beer-battered fried pickles, Camellia red beans from New Orleans and Creole potato salad ending with a creamy, spicy spark.

At the end of the month they will open Milk Bar in a separate, connected space, where milks made from hemp, quinoa, flax and nuts are served with a slate of new dishes they’ve yet to announce. Our only hint is that Suel recently made a culinary “research trip” to Texas, which could indicate that barbecue is coming.

The eatery’s design is a natural fit to North Park, where rollup windows and reclaimed materials are de rigueur in today’s hipster restaurant scene. Large, lacquered-wood tables dominate the indoor-outdoor dining spaces while thousands of pennies plaster the façade of the order counter.

Past the condiment station is a wall-size photograph from 1922 of a young, curly-haired boy smoking a cigarette with a fat chicken sitting next to him — a daring art choice that can potentially rattle doting parents.

While awaiting our meal, we first dug into a square-shaped berry-frosted donut that didn’t deliver the fruitiness we expected. Conversely, the round, puffy limoncello donut crowned in meringue tasted angelic as it oozed bright, citrusy lemon curd from its center.

In both cases the donuts were breadier than most. And less greasy, due perhaps to the fact they’re fried lightly in rice bran oil. On any given day, 12 different flavors occupy the display cases such as Tom Kah, horchata and bacon-molasses. On Saturday mornings, from 8 to 11 a.m., you can connect to your inner child with donuts incorporating popular cereals such as Cocoa Pebbles and Lucky Charms.

The chicken is free-range and sourced from Mary’s Farm. It’s brined in-house for at least 24 hours and available in three styles: Southern, Korean and “Nashville hot.” We tried all three in quarter portions, opting for dark meat only in the Southern version. Half and whole birds are also sold, along with wings, skins and boneless popcorn pieces.

The chicken comes also with a choice of glazes and sauces. For the Korean, we chose honey-sesame, which was sticky and delicious as it adhered to the smooth, crispy batter. The Southern-fried chicken offered no surprises. It was classically crumbly on the outside and moist inside, although lacking a little in black pepper and paprika.

Our favorite was the Nashville hot, served over two slices of white bread to catch the occasional drippings of hot sauce trickling off the crunchy batter. The spice level was respectfully high, although if you’re seeking a fire-alarm experience, the off-menu “Nashkill” recipe features a sauce using ghost peppers. Customers are required to sign a waiver when ordering it.

The ala carte side dishes we tried were above average, especially the richly textured red beans flavored with a teasing hint of smoky sausage. My companion was especially fond of the house-made “thick chips” sliced from big Idaho potatoes and fried to a tender crisp, some a bit more than others. Although given their meatiness, I couldn’t help but imagine swiping them through creamy dill dip or Ranch dressing for that matter. We instead made due with ketchup and hot sauce.

Belgian waffles also come into play, with the single portion proving enough after previously downing the two donuts and gnawing through every speck of chicken on our cookie tin. As you learn quickly when stepping inside, and with more than 60 types of soda also staring you in the belly, these merchants of Southern-Midwestern cuisine aren’t counting calories for you.

—Frank Sabatini Jr. is the author of “Secret San Diego” (ECW Press), and began his local writing career more than two decades ago as a staffer for the former San Diego Tribune. You can reach him at [email protected].