As part of Spring Weekend, SUBOG hosts a Food Truck Festival on Saturday, April 21. There were 14 different trucks ranging from sandwiches and fries to smoothies and cupcakes.(Charlotte Lao/The Daily Campus)
14 food trucks lined up on Hillside Road and Fairfield Way for SUBOG’s annual Food Truck Festival on Saturday evening. The festival is a part of the University of Connecticut’s Spring Weekend and has become a thriving tradition in recent years. There were a variety of options available for students including barbecue, lobster, dessert and more.
The food trucks were free to UConn students with a Spring Weekend wristband.
Students started lining up almost an hour before the event commenced. Live music and DJ’s were playing on Fairfield Way to provide entertainment during the wait. SUBOG members were distributing water bottles as well as tickets for the comedy show later that night.
Savory options included Uncle D’s Blazin BBQ, Munchies, Lobstercraft, Food Extrovert, Cod Squad, Whey Station, Makin Jamaican, Lizzie’s Curbside and Fryborg. Each truck offered a menu with a few different options that students could choose from. Vegetarian and vegan options were available at some of the trucks.
The dessert trucks available were Meriano’s Cannoli Truck, Cookie Monstah, Whoopie Wagon, Clyde’s Cupcakes and Yimello Smoothies.
“Overall, I think it’s a really cool thing to have. I like the different choices but not the lines,” Anthony Marino, a fourth-semester management and engineering for manufacturing major, said.
One of the most popular trucks was Munchies, which offered burgers, fries, chicken sandwiches and buffalo chicken skewers. The sandwiches were ready-made to be passed out to hungry students. While the burgers were delicious and well-cooked, not being able to custom-order the toppings of your choosing was a downside to the mechanics of the festival.
Uncle D’s Blazin BBQ was one of the returning trucks from last year’s festival. They offered a variety of barbecue and pulled pork sandwiches, as well as pulled pork or chili over mac and cheese. The line wrapped from the Student Recreation Center to Gampel Pavilion. Once students placed their orders, they were immediately given any beverage they ordered and then had to wait in a second line while their food was being prepared. The smell of barbecue from the grills permeated the entire festival. While it was one of the longest waits, the food was well worth it. It was a great take on classic, southern comfort food and clearly a fan-favorite.
A popular dessert option amongst students was Cookie Monstah, a Boston-based bakery. They came with not one but two trucks and were still one of the first to run out of supplies towards the end of the night. They offered a variety of ice cream cookie sandwich combinations including “The Classic,” which was vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two chocolate chip cookies and “The Cup-O-Joe,” which was two double chocolate cookies with coffee-Oreo ice cream.
“The ice cream cookie sandwich was my favorite,” fourth-semester elementary education major Gabrielle Rago said. “It was delicious, but the line was really long.”
Students waited in line for hours for the food trucks of their choice.
“I got there almost an hour early and there were already over 50 people in line for some of the trucks. It was crazy, but the food is so good that it’s understandable,” Rago said.
The event was scheduled to run from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., but due to large crowds some of the trucks ran out of supplies as early as 7 p.m. Some trucks, such as Cod Squad and Clyde’s Cupcakes ran out of specific menu items quickly but were able to serve their remaining options.
In the week leading up to the festival, SUBOG was giving away promotional skip-the-line passes via social media contests and at their Spring Weekend tables.
“Food Truck day is always really exciting,” Mary Vlamis, a fourth-semester economics and political science double major, said. “You need to be strategic about your timing in order to optimize your experience, but besides that it was a fun and yummy time!”
Melissa Scrivani is a staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at melissa.scrivani@uconn.edu.
Julia Mancini is the associate life editor for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at Julia.mancini@uconn.edu.
