The Great American Food & Music Festivalfeatured

June 14, 2009 | 24 Comments

If you made it to the Great American Food & Music Festival this weekend, you may still be grumbling, “You mean the not so great American no-Food Festival”…

Katz’s Deli, New York Pastrami on Rye

The first time event was just not prepared for the hordes of hungry festival-goers, eyes glowing red from want of a Katz’s Pastrami and other best of the best eats from around the country.

With an influx of over 15,000 patrons descending upon the festival, chaos ensued as systems crashed, credit cards were rendered useless, and lines upon lines multiplied.

Lines…

…and more lines

Passive-aggressive behavior escalated to aggressive-aggressive revolts as people waited an hour plus just to get into the Shoreline Amphitheatre, waited to add money to wristbands so they could purchase food, and then waited some more to actually get close to that glorious food.

Junior’s Cheesecake

Propane griddles failed, food ran out, and disgruntled folks stood in lines for hours on end. Yes hours (that’s plural). Those Anchor Bar Buffalo Wings were mighty tasty, but were they worth 3 hours of standing in line?

Grievance aside, once you managed to get to some food, it was delicious.

A burger from Bobby

Coupled with some big cold beers, beautiful weather, some green grass to sit on, and a little entertainment, the day ended up being a fun day in the sun.

Brianne — Lick My Spoon’s ticket giveaway winner!!! Mmm bagel and lox from Barney Greengrass.

Not to mention, the opportunity to get up close and personal with the talented chefs and proprietors who make some of the best food around the country. And of course, Food Network celeb chefs galore: Bobby Flay, Guy Fieri, Anne Burrell, and Aida Mollenkamp.

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Highlights of the festival:

Tony Luke, from cheesesteaks to movie stardom

A nice chat with Tony Luke – a real teddy bear of a guy – who, FYI, likes his cheesesteak with onions, no peppers, wit wiz. He also, apparently, will be gracing the silver screen come August 2009 in a lead performance in The Nail: The Story of Joey Nardone.

Pink’s Famous Hot Dogs

Pink’s Famous Hot Dogs from LA were my favorite item of the day. A meaty dog with that great snap when you bite into it, topped with chili, cheese, kraut, mustard, catsup, relish, and onions. A sloppy, amazing, delicious mess.

SF Weekly Burger Challenge

Bay Area favorites, BurgerMeister, Pearl’s Phatburgers, Bistro Burger, and Mo’s Grill duked it out for the title of Best Burger.

Bistro Burger’s rich, creamy Paris Burger, with brie and sautéed mushrooms, impressed even grill master Bobby with its crazy juiciness.

SF Weekly’s Best Burger Winner: Pearl’s Hawaiian Burger

But, it was no match for Pearl’s Hawaiian Burger, with sliced pineapple, bacon, teriyaki sauce, jack and mayo, which took first with its sweet, spicy, exotic burger o’ love.

Rockstar Performance from Guy Fieri

Must give props to Guy, he rocked the crowd with a highly entertaining blowout performance complete with loud rock n’roll, gratuitous hot chicks on stage, big machinery, power tools, and pyrotechnics.

All in all, a day that was admittedly frustrating, but not without some bright spots. If the people don’t lynch them first, here’s hoping that producers of The Great American Food & Music Festival can learn from mistakes and come back with a better, more organized, less stressful event next year.

Baby likes Brisket

We’re rooting for you to work out the kinks because we know that bringing together America’s best is no easy feat. Looking forward to next year!

Photo Credit: Kai Yu

Participating Restaurants:
Katz’s Deli (New York, NY) – New York Pastrami on Rye
Tony Luke’s Philly Cheesesteaks (Philadelphia, PA)
Anchor Bar Buffalo Wings (Buffalo, NY)
Southside Market Texas BBQ (Elgin, TX) – Sausage and Beef Brisket
Burgermeister(San Francisco, CA) – Burgers and Fries
Zingerman’s (Ann Arbor, MI – America’s Best Bacon Sampler
June Taylor (Berkeley, CA) – America’s Best PB & J
Pasta Pomodoro (San Francisco, CA) – Insalata di Farro
Pink’s Famous Hot Dogs (Los Angeles, CA)
Barney Greengrass (New York, NY) – Nova Scotia Salmon w/Cream Cheese on Bagel
Graeter’s Famous Ice Cream (Cincinnati, OH) – “Oprah’s ice cream”
The Original It’s It Ice Cream Treat (San Francisco, CA) – Ice Cream Sandwich
Junior’s Classic Cheesecake (New York, NY)
Bouchon Bakery (Yountville, CA) – Chocolate Bouchons
Charles Chocolates (Emeryville, CA) – Caramel Almond Sticks, Made to Order S’mores, Truffle Sampler

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24 comments on "The Great American Food & Music Festival"

Adam Kuban AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 6:26 am1

Thanks for the kind words on the fest, Stephanie. And I’m sorry you and Brianne came out to the event only to deal with all the ticketing and line disasters. We all feel really horrible about how things went down.

I’m also sorry I missed you. Past a certain point, I was off monitoring Twitter and cringing at the fallout happening in real time. (And I wasn’t too optimistic that you’d have stuck around.)

But it looks like you managed to have some good times regardless. Hope you eventually got enough to eat. Believe me, along with our event partners, we’re totally looking at what went wrong, and if we get a chance to do this again next year, we will definitely go back to the drawing board and think things through properly next time.

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- Stephanie AUTHOR — June 16, 2009 @ 8:54 pm1.1
  
  Hey Adam, thanks for being so responsive and for taking suggestions for improvement to heart. best of luck to you guys!
  
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Sylvia from Pearl's Deluxe Burger AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 9:24 am2

thank you for this post festival blog. I’d like to know if we can get some copies of the burger challenge pictures. we were a bit jittery about the cook off that we forgot to bring a camera.

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- Stephanie AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 11:31 pm2.1
  
  Hi Sylvia! yes, i’ll def email you the pics 🙂 congrats on your victory!!
  
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Lando AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 10:01 am3

Despite the festival’s ups and downs, I had a good time there. My favorite had to be Tony Luke’s cheesesteak. There’s something biting into a sandwich dripping with flavor that you can’t beat.

If they do have another event, hopefully things will go a lot smoother.

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Sean L AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 10:03 am4

Hi Steph, I and thousands of others will be quite a happy camper too if we had Media Passes like you guys did. Did you guys partake the hours waiting in-line just to get in? How long did you waited in-line for that phat juicy Pearl’s burger land on your lap? Exactly. It’s dumbed-down journalistic to say the least.
This “first pancake” in Mt.View is Ed’s idea of market-testing for future ones in NY, closer to his home (where he can’t afford major screw ups) – I bet norcal will never see something like this again.

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- Stephanie AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 12:46 pm4.1
  
  Hey Sean,
  True true, we were lucky enough to bypass the big ass line to get into the venue, and were able to score front seats for the burger contest (without which I would not have been able to provide you with such lovely foodporn), however, we did wait for hours in line for food just like everyone else. We waited in the wings/pastrami line for 3.5 hours to get to the front, and then another 2 hrs after they said they ran out of pastrami, only to be told we could only buy 1 measly plate of wings. Very unpleasant and aggravating. So, I hear ya. We were fortunate enough to be granted media pass but would be asking for a refund had we had to pay the entrance fee. (Have you asked for a refund?)
  
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Bob AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 10:07 am5

Man, I wouldn’t have been able to handle that kind of thing. Huge angry crowds make me nervous. But the food looks great, awesome pictures. 🙂

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Sarah AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 11:39 am6

Its too bad the media passes didn’t get us out of the food lines! That would’ve been freaking sweet… and rod and I would’ve been able to get our brisket in less than an hour!

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hua AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 12:46 pm7

Suggestions for Improvements (please feel free to reply if you have more constructive criticism)

After speaking with many people we came away with the following take-aways to improve the event:

1) Hospitality â€“ Have people on hand ready to serve water and complimentary snacks for people waiting in line. It would help make the hot, long wait more bearable.

2) Communication with all members of the staff through walkie talkies and a proper chain of command. â€“ There were lots of the people working who didn’t have a clue on what was going on.

3) Kids Area – There needed to be an open space for parents to be with their family, not pushing through lines with strollers. Some kid-friendly food would have been a nice touch.

4) More Seating – It was painstaking to see two senior women who waited in line with me for 3.5 hours in the Katz’s line to not have a place to sit after getting food.

5) Handheld Devices – The RFID bracelets were a good idea and would have been great if they had enough bandwidth and given everyone advanced notice of their usage. In the future, consider having a staff of people with handheld devices go around the lines so people can re-up their accounts while they wait to get into the venue. This could have avoided the “double line” problem and patrons would have been prepped and ready to go before they even got into Shoreline.

6) Use of Space – Shoreline has a huge lawn area with a top level service center. Many more booths could have been put there to alleviate the congestion.

7) Vendor Relations – There should have been someone from each vendor communicating with people about the quantity of food left. In the case of Katz’s, people waited hours for food that wasn’t there.

8 ) Preparation of Food in Advance – Have enough food on hand to satisfy the Lunch Rush.

9) Food Vendors in the Pavilion – Copy any major sporting event where they have Food Vendors walking around with food and drinks to sell. This would have avoided people missing cooking demonstrations and could have alleviated some of the crankiness of hungry people waiting in line.

10) Samples – Mrs. A’s Salsa seemed to be the only local food vendor that was giving out food samples. You need more local vendors like this. They want to get in front of masses of people and offer their tasty treats.

11) A Map and more Signs – We struggled to find vendors and lost lots of time trying to pinpoint vendors through the crowd

12) VIP – An all you can eat area where VIP, who are paying upwards to $500, can sit, eat, and drink. We conversed with VIP, waiting in line with everyone else, and there were understandably the most angry since they had paid such a premium for what seemed like nothing.

13) Media Schedule – A schedule of when celebrity chefs or other personalities will be in the meet and greet area to be asked questions.

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- hua AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 12:53 pm7.1
  
  These comments are from “BurgerKing” on Ed Levine’s “The Fest: Our Humblest Apologies to All”. Well said!
  
  My suggestions for better food festival:
  – better, more spacious venue like a fairgrounds – shoreline was the worst possible venue for 10,000 people
  
  – more vendors, more booths
  
  – a sheet of paper with time schedules and festival map
  
  – line control barriers to prevent cutting which was rampant
  
  – cash only with ATM’s – no fancy high-tech wrist bands – get rid of them
  
  – free plate of food should not have to be first plate of food – that’s why everyone went straight to katz’s and not the pb&j place – you would’ve been stupid not to go to the expensive place for your free plate – maybe just a voucher that you can use anytime during day
  
  – do not stick the two most popular foods together in one booth (i.e. Katz and Buffalo Wings) – basically the people would order both wings and pastrami – wings would come out in 5 minutes, but pastrami wouldn’t come out till 15 minutes later – the whole time, the line wouldn’t move until that first person completed their entire order
  
  – MOST IMPORTANT SUGGESTION – make the serving sizes smaller and charge less – for example serve a quarter of a pastrami sandwich for $3 or 3 chicken wings for $3 and limit it to 1 per customer – this is a food festival where people are most interested in sampling the foods and you need to keep the lines moving – you don’t need to give them a whole sandwich which would be a meal in itself – the problem we witnessed was a single person would order 20 buffalo wings and two whole huge pastrami sandwiches and this would wipe out the available food for another 15 minutes — smaller portion sizes = lines moving = something in their stomach = happy people
  
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  - RavenousCouple AUTHOR — June 17, 2009 @ 12:03 pm7.1
    
    Hua: Nice recap of the SE posts. Even though we didn’t go, we’re riveted to that thread. It was ironic that we went to another food festival on the same weekend, Taste of the Nation Los Angeles and they nailed it…fabulous event. Over 46+ restaurants, unlimited tastings for 1 price and free ETOH and hardly a wait..granted it was probably 1/10 the size… We blogged about it on our site.
    
    Stephanie and Kai: Fantastic photos!!! So glad to discover your blog.
    
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Brianne AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 2:11 pm8

The long lines and wristband system breakdown were definitely frustrating. Reading comments here and elsewhere it seems that some people didn’t get to eat a single thing (eek!) and I can see how that would make for irate festival goers!

Personally, though, I had a fantastic time relaxing in the sun on the green while eating the buffalo-flavored fruits of my line-waiting labors as Bobby Flay on the big screen schooled me in the art of cooking a perfect stove top burger. 🙂 Thanks so much for the tickets Stephanie!!

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- Stephanie AUTHOR — June 16, 2009 @ 8:50 pm8.1
  
  thanks, Brianne — I’m glad you ended up having a good time and that the giveaway prize wasn’t more like giveaway torture 🙂
  
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Chiffonade AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 4:41 pm9

I’d like to thank you very much for finding the silver lining in the Food Fest. Your photos were great and your account is first-hand-factual without being unnecessarily mean.

Chiffonade

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- Stephanie AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 11:32 pm9.1
  
  Thanks, Chiffonade 🙂 i really appreciate that.
  
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OysterCulture AUTHOR — June 15, 2009 @ 8:49 pm10

Wow, can’t say I am sorry to have missed it. I take that back, with all that incredible food porn, I want my Katz’s pastrami. I am salivating just looking at that photo.

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Nick Leung AUTHOR — June 16, 2009 @ 1:51 am11

I heard it was a total fiasco!

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Kitchen M AUTHOR — June 16, 2009 @ 3:10 pm12

You got some great photos! I sort of gave up after they started running out of food… Even through the festival wasn’t as good as people expected, I still had a great time and I’m already looking forward to the next time around. 🙂

Hua, I can’t agree with you more!

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Dana AUTHOR — June 16, 2009 @ 3:41 pm13

I really liked this post. Everyone knows there were huge problems with the festival and critics just love to pan things. I appreciate that you acknowledged there were huge problems but then went on to find some great aspects and take some wonderful photos. Its really easy to b*tch and moan in life and in a food blog, its easier to be funny and to sound sophisticated. Its not as easy in life and in writing to appreciate the good.

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we are never full AUTHOR — June 19, 2009 @ 5:21 am14

great write-up – feels like i was there! and great photos. i know i’m cynical (and also a real hater of the food network) but seriously, someone has got to contain guy fieri. i know his “shtick” is prob. entertaining on a certain level but it makes my head spin. it’s just so predictable that he’d have the bret michaels meets evil kneivel thing going with his segment – he mind as well just bring in a big paper mache statue of his own you-know-what to bring the level of his manliness up a few emeril notches! lol – just made myself giggle at that thought.

ok, i’ll stop. but thanks for the write-up.

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DK AUTHOR — June 22, 2009 @ 1:36 pm15

glad i missed it. broken footed people don’t like standing for hours!

too bad you didn’t have a giant with you though to stomp down all the angry people!

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Lick My Spoon » Homeroom and Mac + Cheese Giveaway! AUTHOR — February 15, 2011 @ 11:10 am16

[…] first met fellow food blogger, Allison Arevalo at a food festival two years ago. Since then, she’s embarked on the exciting new venture of opening her own […]

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Lick My Spoon | SF Street Food Fanatics Unite AUTHOR — October 29, 2014 @ 12:37 am17

[…] crowd seemed to be generally good-humored and calm (unlike the foaming-at-the-mouth angries at the Great American Food Fest a few months […]

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