February 13, 2010. A day that will live in infamy.
To any Southern California foodie worth their salt, (nyuk nyuk) February 13, 2010 wasn’t just the day before Valentine’s Day… it was the day the 1st Annual Los Angeles Street Food Fair took place. Imagine a squadron of food trucks, all spawn LA’s recent food truck craze, gathered in one place to take on a 13,000-strong army of their Twitter followers.
It was definitely an experience for the ages.
I call shenanigans!
The WE eatz team made it to the LA center studios at 11:30am, thinking we’d be in the clear, seeing as how the festival was slated to start at 11:00am. Boy, were we wrong! As we drove around the the LA Center Studios in search of parking, we were dismayed to find that all the lots in the immediate area were full, and the line was over 4 blocks long. Wait, did you say 4 blocks? I sure did. With questioning steps, we made it to our place at line’s end. Our doubts receded, however, when we ran into a couple of Eatsplorers! Bonny companions! No company is bad company when you’re killing time, says I. Thankfully, the line was moving along at a decent rate. In 45 minutes we had traversed 3.5 blocks of LA’s finest concrete flooring. The entrance gate was a mere stone’s throw away. We were ripe for getting inside the fest before 1pm, giving us a full 4 hours to indulge in food truck goodness. Then it happened: the line stopped cold.
The color drained from my world. We were so close. I knew that a line stoppage could only mean one thing: they had hit capacity. All was not lost, however. As long as a volunteer in a LA Street Food Fest t-shirt did not come out of the gates to bear bad news, the very harbinger of Food Fest death, all would be just… -and there she was, bearing her megaphone to announce in clarion that our food quest was over. Or was it? Nay, the volunteer spake words of hope, a hope that, although delayed, our entrance into the food fest would come to fruition. One in, one out; that was the policy now. All we had to do was be patient.
Worse than the Captain EO Revival line.
An hour later, the WE eatz team and our 2 stalwart companions were bowing under the weight of our shoulders, encumbered by the sun’s rays that poured upon us for nigh-two hours. The line had not moved. Friends on the inside looked upon us in pity through the fest’s iron bars. They most graciously smuggled us small bits of sustenance. A bottle of water here, a curry dumpling there, a chicken wing here, all worked in unison to renew our gusto. We were going to get in. We had waited this long and there was nothing that could stop us know. Dare I say, not even a second clarion-possessing food fest gatekeeper, even though he be less attractive and male with a crooked goatee and an imperial accent! -not even if he bore news that they gate was shutting down completely and we’d all have to go home.
Ah, bugger. Bloody wanker. Defeat. Sound the retreat.
But no! As the WE eatz team waited by the gate for our next round of smuggled rations from the inside, the gatekeeper spoke again. The crowd’s uproar was deafening! We were to be let inside (at least the next 100 or so of us).
Crisp Lincolns in hands, we walked through the gates and into the LA Food Fest.
