Annual Street Food Rodeo brings Davis foodie-community together

By Claire Bold,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

A new tradition around Davis is the Street Food Rodeo, with its sixth annual event held on Friday, May 19. The festival of food was a well rounded experience providing numerous food trucks to attendees as well as live music.

The event was hosted by City of Davis, Westlake Market, Stonesfair Apartments, Watermelon Music, and Lamppost Pizza. There were many information booths advertising other events around Davis such as “The Davis Dirt,” a monthly newsletter about activities around downtown and UC Davis campus. Annie Deering, one of the head coordinators of the newsletter was excited to help host the event. “’The Davis Dirt’ likes to promote and bring fun things to town and we thought this was something that town was missing,” Deering said.

As attendees entered the festival, stands were set up to welcome bikers with a free bike valet as well as free bike lights, reflectors, and a bike check-up as a way to say thank you to those who decided to conserve gas. This all comes as part of the encouragement of May Is Bike Month, a campaign to cut back on carbon dioxide emissions that spans all month long.

Though the main event of the night was undoubtedly the delicious and exotic foods. With thirteen different food trucks all offering a different style of delicacy, it is hard not to find something tasty by everyone’s standards. Senior Gloria Li attended the event with fellow Davis High senior Allegra Starr. “It was a lot of fun! It was really interesting to see all the different food trucks there,” Li said.

Ranging from classic barbeque to Grecian gyros to Hawaiian shaved ice and churros the options were very diverse. Judging by the long lines at each truck, all were popular choices for dinner and dessert.

As well as diverse food choices was a diverse base of attendees; about half were human and half were kanine. In addition to many four-legged friends running around with their owners at the event were young children enjoying the music and food. High school students, college students and families alike basked in the early evening light, catching up with friends or swaying to the music.

Keeping everyone entertained were the three lively groups of the night: Boca do Rio, the Steve Kotarek Band, and the CCC Ukulele and Hula Ensemble. The CCC Ukulele and Hula Ensemble featured matching purple Hawaiian shirts and wooed the crowd with their laidback and relaxing tunes.

Li reminisced to the days when the event first began, commenting how, “It’s gotten a lot bigger since it started.” Those in charge of the event were very pleased with the turnout of people as well as proud of all their hard work that went into making the event possible. “The residents of West Davis are very grateful to have such a large, free event in their neighborhood and I think the positive vibe stems from that. There is also nothing quite like it,” Deering said.