PHOTOS: Food Truck Festival Attracts Large Crowd To Windsor’s Waterfront

Hello time traveller!!
This article is 3239 days old.
The information listed below is likely outdated and has been preserved for archival purposes.

On what many consider the definition of a beautiful day in Windsor, the cool summer breeze carried the mouth watering smell from a collection of food trucks down by the riverfront during the first of this summer’s SUNSET Truckin’ Good Food Rally.

Organized by WindsorEats co-owners Pina and Adriano Ciotoli, the first rally of the season is bringing crowds of people to Windsor’s Assumption Park, following the delicious smells of unique dishes.

The brother and sister duo hosted their first rally last summer over a two day stretch, which saw over 6,000 people and had food truck owners running to local stores and preparing food on site trying not to run out of merchandise.

“It was an insane weekend and it just gave you an indication of how much people want food trucks in their city and towns,” said Pina. “It was a great kind of example to show policy makers and city councilors that maybe it’s time to relook at that bylaw and let’s change it a little bit, let’s make it a little bit easier for these trucks to operate and give them just a little bit more room to breathe.”

Adriano and Pina agree the bylaws in Windsor are very restrictive for food trucks and the reason behind their rallies are not only to showcase the great food trucks Windsor has to offer, but also to spread awareness in hopes of seeing some changes to the current bylaws.

“When you apply for a permit you’re stuck at one particular location but you can’t be a certain distance from a curb, you can’t be a certain distance from a stop sign or a bus stop, you can’t be in a BIA which pretty much restricts any kind of foot traffic coming to your food truck so it makes it very hard for a food truck operator to operate in Windsor,” said Adriano. “With our rally, which we started last year, we were hoping to at least kind of put the focus on that, show that there is a demand for food trucks and that people are wanting it.”

Adriano said one of the common comments he hears about food trucks is the competition they would bring to local restaurants. However, he said it has been with food trucks in the area, the foot traffic to local restaurants increases because “there are people who are going to want to sit down and have a meal,” but food trucks also offer very different, often times smaller meals.

“It allows chefs to be a bit more creative and try something unique,” said Adriano. “Where as if you’re doing a brick and mortar restaurant and you’re really trying an off the wall kind of cuisine or style of food, it’s going to be a lot harder to try and draw the amount of people in when they’ve never tried it before where as with a food truck people seem to be a little bit more willing to sample something.”

The rally today will continue until 7pm or until the supplies run out at the trucks. WindsorEats will continue to host the rallies once a month throughout the summer, with the last one planned in October. The next rally will be at North 42 Winery during explore the shore, which has both Pina and Adriano excited because North 42 is well known for doing a wine slushie in the past.

“They think out of the box a little bit, they offer you something unique, something you may not be able to get at a restaurant and I just love that aspect of it,” said Pina. “As you look around there’s tons of people here … We know that people want this and so that keeps us going and we’ll keep doing these things until people really don’t want them anymore.”