Santa Anita Food Truck Festival: Your Cross-Addiction Daily Double

By Amy Scattergood Fri., Jan. 28 2011 at 12:15 PM

Border Grill Truck's ceviche

If you like the ponies and you've long been looking for a way to combine your secret gambling habit with your love for food trucks, you've hit the proverbial jackpot. The Santa Anita Food Truck Festival is tomorrow, Saturday, January 29th, from 11:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

There will be about 20 food trucks, including (as of today): Border Grill, Grilled Cheese, South Philly Experience, Baby's Badass Burgers, Canters, Dosa, Brian's Comfort Truck, Dogtown Dogs, Knockout Tacos, ~~Yatta~~, Dante Fried Chicken, No Reservations, Don Chow Tacos, The Sweets Truck, Chunkn' Chips, Barbies Q, Lobsta Truck, Ragin Cajun, Fresh Fries LA, Lardon, Tapa Boy LA, Crepe'N Around, and NaanStop, which Grub Street says is making its debut.

There will also be a Wine Tent (cross-addiction being very chic these days), a Smile Lounge Photo Booth, and a special performance by The Spazmatics. Lucky you. Entrance to the event is $12, which does not include the price of food. Go bet on something, I guess. Or maybe make sure you eat first and then go lose the rest on the horses. Or not. We're told that a horse called Banana Cream Pie won the last race yesterday.

As an incentive to purchase the $12.00 ticket online, all tickets reserved by midnight tonight will include free parking.

Location Info

Venue

Map

Santa Anita Race Track

285 W. Huntington Drive, Arcadia, CA

Category: General

0 user reviews	Write A Review
Save to foursquare

Tags:

Amy Scattergood, food trucks, Santa Anita Food Truck Festival

We Recommend

Ezabell

I really dont undertsnad all these complaints about this event.....first off if you are smart...u pay to get in through the race track entrance..which is only $5....then u get into the festival for free.....and lunch time yes the trucks were at peek high obviously....but 2pm n after were totally empty....i didnt wait longer then 10 minutes for beer......great music....I bet on horses...saw some horses....great event....thumbs up....

Sunny Day

I agree, this was a horrible event. We got there at 1:00 pm and people were still coming in. The lines to enter the event and get a wrist band were HUGE. It was chaos.

They oversold tickets (someone on line asked "where is the fire department?" aloud), which I'm sure suits the race track just fine. But not for people who had to wait 2 hours and 40 minutes (me on a crepe line with 3 kids under the age of 10) for food. My husband waited close to 3 hours for a Philly cheese steak truck.

I should have bailed after an hour waiting on my line since I only moved a few feet (I was still hopeful). Had I known it would be close to 3 hours to wait for a stupid crepe (or any food item) we would have left. We paid $12 x 4 = $48 entry. Thanks for nothing.

We drove from Thousand Oaks (Ventura County) with the family (meeting other folks) thinking this would be a fun event and we'd get to see some races. Not even close. We did attend a recent Agoura High School Food Truck fundraiser (entry was a reasonable $7) and that was superb because the lines were 15 minute waits (short lines), about the same amount of trucks and I was able to go to different trucks to sample other foods. Though you can't possibly sample more than 3 (at least I can't). I guess we won't be driving into LA anymore for any type of food truck festivals unless the organizer is confirming a cap on attendees, or the trucks themselves hire more people to cook and meet the demand of the crowd.

Learn from the New Orleans Jazz Fest. The race field has multiple stages of incredible music going on simultaneously. The food stands (gourmet restaurants) provide an affordable sampling plate of food. The wait is never long because people are there for ANOTHER reason (not just the food). (BTW, if you go, the music will blow your mind. I'm not talking about the lame headliners for 2011, I'm talking about the Louisiana artists.)

Arlo7000

Horrible!!!! I can't believe how bad this experience was. I've never tried any of the food trucks that participated before, nor have I still. We waited in only one line, because all lines were ridiculously long. Waited about 3 hours in this line with the sun beating down on my head only to reach the window and have them tell me they were out of food. I will never go to another food truck festival again. It was a waste of my life to be there. Even if I was to get the money I paid to stand around for hours I still wouldn't try this again. Thanks for nothing.

Bummed

Great idea, horrible execution. You paid to get in, then you had to pay in another line to get to the food trucks, then you had lines ranging between 30-50+ people at EVERY truck, then we found out the trucks were being instructed NOT to sell drinks, expecting you to go wait in yet another line? I was hoping to get to try several different things. I hit one truck, and then gave up getting a sandwich from the Santa Anita restaurants. They stuck a stage for a cover band between some of the most popular trucks which just added to the chaos.

Was really looking forward to this. Hope they learn from it.

Taylorb

The most horrible experience I have ever had. Got there at 12:30 waited in line till 4 for tacos that were pretty good. Went home. Saw no races. UUUUHHHHGG horrible planning. 2 hour min waiting in line for each truck.