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| - After a two-year hiatus for me, I knew that I had to try Foodie Fest again when they announced their new location just minutes away from where I live.
The Great American Foodie Fest, which I've previously reviewed under their "Las Vegas Foodie Fest" listing at the Silverton casino, is a huge four-day gathering of food trucks from near and far, as well as other food and non-food vendors. It's been held twice a year at various Vegas venues for as long as I've attended it, and their latest site was just outside the Sunset Station casino in Henderson.
I've reviewed specifics about the food trucks under their respective pages, but I saw a lot of new and old out-of-town trucks. That's the main draw for me because there are other opportunities to try the local trucks. Waffle Love isn't totally inaccessible since they have a truck in St. George (in fact, this truck is the one that they dispatched), but I was excited to try them just a couple of weeks after their appearance in the finale of the latest season of the Great Food Truck Race, and not only did they show up, but they were my favorite truck of the event. Other highlights for me included Jogasaki (as usual), Fluff Ice (also an old favorite), Frach's Fried Ice Cream (new here), and Okamoto Kitchen (also new), all from the Los Angeles area.
Considering that this is the biggest food truck gathering in town, I was a little disappointed that certain local food trucks didn't show up on all the days, and some not at all. Fukuburger is a Foodie Fest veteran and my favorite food truck of all, but they were absent on all but the final day. Buldogis, Street Dogs, and Rika Arepa Express (as a food tent) would've been nice too. Also, although i wouldn't have needed it, I was surprised that there was only one Hawaiian shaved ice vendor.
Aside from the food trucks, there were good and bad things about the event, in my experience:
- $10 admission, $8 presale, $6 Facebook special limited presale. For multiple visits, I was very happy to snap up the $6 wristbands.
- There's one entrance gate, and although the prepaid ticket line was somewhat long on the first night, it moved quickly enough since they just had to scan barcodes and pass you off to the people in charge of placing wristbands. I can't comment on those entry lines aside from that encounter since I was just able to walk in with my wristband on subsequent visits.
- There was a pretty good amount of seating with the two tents full of tables, and I was even able to find seats at night. I think the tables were too tightly packed though, and with chairs pulled out toward the aisles, it was generally too difficult to reach the middle of the tables.
- The music was generally fine, but it was way, way too loud, especially in the bass. Since the venue is so small, this makes it hard for you to talk to your friends/family if you're in the middle two rows of the four rows of trucks/vendors, an area which also includes one of those seating tents.
- Parking was generally fine. There were plenty of spaces if you include the parking garage and the parking lots on the other side of the casino. I was able to park in one of those lots, walk through the casino, exit on the other side, then take a quick stroll across a street to reach the actual event. However, I don't recall seeing any signage for the event inside the casino, and if I hadn't been so familiar with the casino's layout, I could've gotten lost en route easily.
Aside from the loud music and the seating concerns, I would be very excited if the Great American Foodie Fest were to return to Sunset Station. If not, then I'll just have to follow them around the Vegas valley, depending on whether I'm interested in the food truck lineup for those iterations.
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