Forty-seven food trucks will gather in Little Rock on Main Street on Oct. 3 for the fourth annual Main Street Food Truck Festival. This year, a local favorite, Slader’s Alaskan Dumplings Co. (SADCo.) will be joining them.
“We definitely bring something different to the game, and I’m excited to show that to people,” said Payton Weeks, general manager at SADCo., who will be in charge of the truck during the festival.
According to Weeks, Slader’s will be prepared to serve 600 meals.
This is a big deal for the company because the food truck is new, Weeks said. This will be the food truck’s first appearance at an event this large.
Weeks said he is excited about the number of people who “will see who we are and what we are about.”
This year’s festival will be larger than last year’s festival by 20 food trucks, Gabe Holmstrom, the executive director of the Downtown Little Rock Partnership, said.
Despite last year’s attendance of 13,000 people, Holmstrom said they aim to offer more options for this year’s crowd.
“This year we have more food trucks and hopefully more people to check out the different food the trucks have,” Holmstrom said.
The atmosphere is also a major part of the festival, Holmstrom said.
There will be craft vendors and buskers, musicians and artists on the street corners, in addition to the food trucks, Holmstrom said.
“It was just a happy, pleasant environment,” said junior Audrey Moeckel about last year’s festival. Moeckel also spoke highly of the food she enjoyed when she went to last year’s festival.
“I’m a big food critic. I love food. I love cooking. And I was very impressed with it,” Moeckel said.
Moeckel said she enjoyed her bratwurst from “Southern Salt Food Company” that was full of Asian flavors like soy sauce instead of the traditional German flavors.
Another thing that Moeckel said she loved about the festival was how everyone around her appreciated the food just as much as she did.
“It was creative food. Not average,” Moeckel said.
Main Street Food Truck Festival, named one of the top 10 food festivals in the country by vacationidea.com in May 2015, is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Entrance is free.
