SF Street Food Fanatics Unite

Unfortunately I thought it was a massive fail. Horrible venue (just because it is outside the La Cocina office doesn’t make it a good place!), no trash cans that I could find, drinks sold out, much of the food sold out and nobody to manage the 200-person lines – one short one we were in took 1.5 hours to get to the front, at which point we were told the food was sold out. They stripped out the vendors’ own signage and photos and menus, using corporate-looking uniform signage instead, which told you nothing about the food. The whole point of street food is seeing it cooked, and they fenced off the cooking area so you couldn’t even see what you were going to get before you got to the front of the line. On so many levels it was just horrible. The only staff I saw were selling merchandise and crap at various tables, not managing the ridiculously large crowds.

Hopefully next weekend’s Eat Real Fest in Oakland does it a bit better! At least they’re not making the sellers conform to their sanitized, white-washed corporate look as La Cocina did…

I considered heading down until I got a report from a friend, “If you want food, go somewhere else. You’ll never get any here.” Sounds like just as big a miserable failure as the Great American Stand In Line for 3 Hours festival.

It is often difficult to plan an event, especially one that revolves around food and is the first time it is being put on. There are some things we all should consider before throwing down the gavel.
1) Profit margins are slim. Most of the vendors here are small businesses that need to properly plan on buying enough inventory but not too much so they aren’t stuck with it.
2) The majority of the staff are volunteers, not vetted event handlers
3) The event was free to the public and benefited a non profit organization
4) The event was blessed with good weather and when good weather hits San Francisco, we all can agree, people come out in masses.
5) Resources are slim for business owners. It was a nice thing for Street Food Fest to provide signage and tents for the vendors. It is one less thing to worry about and now a small business that sells small batches of cookies can happily sell next to a bigger restaurant like Slanted Door.

Yes, there could have been better management of lines.
Yes, there could have been better passport handling
Yes, there were tons of people
Yes, there could have been more staff

I am sure that the La Cocina team are planning how to make improve on these areas to make a better event for next year. You can send feedback to on their site at http://www.lacocinasf.org/.

I agree with all the above and could have bitched about it but it was a Saturday with great weather, there were interesting people to chat with in line, and I love Street Food.

Personally I did not think it was a failure, expecially for having been the first festival. True, it got very crowded, I did get there at 11:03AM and already a surprising amount of people had shown up. Luckily I went with two others, so while I waited for oysters in the Poleng line for almost 45mns, my friends had scored an Absinthe hotdog and a funnel cake which we cheerfully ate while I waited in line. Somehow waiting in line so long really made me appreciate those oysters and I loved every bite. Also I applaud that all the plastic was compostable and that there were many compostable bins & recycling bins at strategic location with monitors who would be sure people put the compostables and recyclables in correct receptacle.

Hopefully, next year there will be more genuine street food vendors and less fancy restaurants now that the desire for such food is prominent. But I did appreciate eating some of the “fancier” restaurant food at a relatively less-expensive price.

Thank you for the the team Soup Sluts shout out! :)

As the banana in said photo, I really wanted this festival to be amazing, but aside from having to struggle through crowds to finish our scavenger hunt that was absolutely nerve-racking, I have to say I wasn’t thrilled with how it went down.

We got there at noon and quickly were able to get tacos guisados (part of our trivia questions, so we decided to support them with buying food) at El Buen Comer, but were absolutely tasteless. My horchata was nothing but flat, La Taqueria and several others make better versions. And my Capirinha drink in the bar was too small and nothing impressive. At least Absinthe had awesome Cheddar Corn Peanut Brittle. But I couldn’t get Elote or Funnel Cake like I wanted without standing in an insane, unorganized line. At one point we had to leave to get Wi-Fi to complete our challenge, so part of our team stayed behind for legendary funnel cake. When they met us an hour later, they told us that the lines were so con-jumbled and no one was paying attention so it’s why they were taking so long. Creme brulee, elote and funnel cake were crossing into a giant wait when it could have only taken 20 minutes.

I didn’t even get to really eat anything from the locals. So sad! :(

We ran into Creme Brulee dude and his wife at a local bar afterwards, and they said they ran out in 3 hours….they had no idea it was going to be so slammed and didn’t have enough prepared to serve everyone. They felt really bad, I kind of feel like perhaps the vendors weren’t notified of what to expect.

Oh and I heard at least 8 people ask were trash cans were and none of the volunteer staff knew where anything was or anything about the event or sponsorship. While the branding and imaging looked really organized, I really wonder if it was at all profitable for these businesses and if there couldn’t have been more training/prep involved on the organizations part.

That being said, I do hope they attempt again next year!