The lines are long. The food is expensive. Everyone in the group wants to eat something different. The food taste is a gamble. There are few places to eat.
Does everyone stick together and wait in all of the lines? Split up and meet at some location? Eat on the way to the festival and just hang out?
Going before the lines form can be a good strategy.
Why wasn’t “not go” an option?
When lines are super long it can be fun to go for the trucks with the shortest wait as you can discover some gems and also see which trucks have their systems down and are worthwhile to support.
I’m also a fan of splitting up to and reconnecting later. But I hate walking around in large groups- no one really gets what they are after.
Show up. Spend money. Leave.
Everyone gets a bit of food and yall share it to taste everything.
Also… why is the food so expensive? Food trucks usually far undercut restaurant prices.
Depends. There are some places where food trucks have been hyped up way too much. In some areas food trucks feel justified charging more because of the “cool” factor.
I could be out of touch with restaurant prices. $13 for plain cheese burger is high ($16 decked out). $6 for a side of fries.
That’s prices for good fast food like Five Guys. Restaurants are more
Depends on the local market.
Assuming you go to a good food truck, my experience with food trucks is GENERALLY that the food quality is as good as a high end restaraunt of the same type (because they only do 2 or 3 things) but with slightly lower prices however its still noticably more expensive than a “pretty good” item from a “pretty good” restaurant.
Like… your getting a 9/10 for 7/10 prices, but you can get a 5/10 for 5/10 price anywhere.
That is a great perspective. The burgers were pretty good. Much better than fast food.
At the local sporting events, the food trucks are ridiculously priced. In gas station parking lots, they’re pretty good deals.
So I’m assuming that at a food truck festival they’d be stupidly expensive.
That’s what I was about to say. That makes no sense. Unless OP is outside their hoke country at like a tourist trap maybe.
- Wander around as a group
- Look at all the different options
- Split up
- Get what you want
- Meet back up
- Share if you want
Repeat steps 3-6 as needed
I usually go for the live music.
Oh, yeah! Live music would be great. Good idea for a filter!
Eat.
Binge and purge?
Boot and rally.
Went to a foodtruck festival last month. We shared some food with each other. The music was okay. There were free activities for kids and free canoeing.
All in all pretty expensive, but it was a nice day.
Bring your own food, lounge chairs, and umbrellas and act as royalty.
Do it in steps:
- Survey each cart, to see what’s available.
- Everyone goes and gets what they want.
- Meet back at designated eating area.
Eat food?
Everybody gets the food they want and then meet back up. Also talk to other people, talk about cool food related stuff like spices and restaurants and ethnic dishes and stuff.
I’m with you though, the long lines, high prices, and hit or miss taste really turned me off to them. They were all the rage when I lived in SF, but I only found a few that I actually liked. Like Señor Sisig… sigh, what I would do for some Señor Sisig these days. But most were just blah. I live in the Midwest now and food trucks here are the same hit-or-miss quality and same high prices and small portions.
So yeah, if it doesn’t sound fun for the social aspect, I’d skip it and just go to a good restaurant.
My local brewery doesn’t have a kitchen but they schedule different food trucks every weekend in their Biergarten. It’s a fantastic arrangement, especially since my town is too small to have much of a food truck scene.
The only problem is I can never take my kids because they don’t want to “go to a bar”
