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When Gretchen Schroeder attended the first day of last May’s Great GoogaMooga food festival in Prospect Park, she anticipated an afternoon spent sampling delectable bites from New York’s top restaurants, while enjoying the Brooklyn park’s natural surroundings. Then reality hit — and it left a bad taste in her mouth.
“The vendors ran out of food,” she recalls. “It was annoying because I went there to try small portions of different things. You’d wait in line, get to the front, and then find out that they don’t even have what you want.”
The 24-year-old Manhattan-based account executive adds, “At the end of the day I was hungry and sunburned.”
GoogaMooga, which is set to take place again this weekend, is just one of an ever-growing number of food fests targeting city chowhounds with the promise of tasting an array of top restaurant offerings.
But they frequently disappoint with long lines, food supplies that run short and dining conditions that are far from optimal — all for a price that’s often greater than or equal to what you’d pay to actually enjoy a meal in a real restaurant.
Alan Palmer, 63, a co-owner of Blue Apron Foods in Park Slope, doesn’t understand the appeal of foodie gatherings such as the twice monthly food-truck rallies at Grand Army Plaza.
“It’s as expensive as going to a restaurant,” he says, explaining that he experienced the long waits, high prices and so-so food by patronizing rolling eateries on the street near his store. “The trucks are overwhelmed with people, and it’s not as good as going to a restaurant.”
Richard Wang, a 32-year-old health-care marketing specialist from Los Angeles, would have to agree. While visiting New York a few years ago, he attended an event called Le Grand Fooding at PS 1, which culled top toques from New York and San Francisco. He hoped the night would be a highlight of his vacation, and paid $50 for a ticket that promised all the gourmet fare he could eat.
But he left hungry and unsatisfied.
“I [didn’t] get my money’s worth,” complains Wang, explaining that there were limited choices and large crowds. “Instead of getting what we really wanted, we went for the low-hanging fruit; there was a chicken dish that we ate with our fingers and something on a skewer that we kept going back for because the line was short. I don’t remember anything spectacular that I was actually able to get my hands onto. It wasn’t worth $50.”
Even getting your hands on water can be a Herculean task.
Jessica Diamond, a 25-year-old attorney, barely fended off dehydration when she attended last year’s GoogaMooga, which took place over a sweltering late spring weekend. “We were in an open field, and you had to wait in line to buy water!” the Manhattanite recalls.
Still, there are plenty of food lovers who remain willing to fork over the cash for these festivals, even if they don’t get their forkful’s worth. This weekend’s GoogaMooga festival marks the start of NYC’s food festival season, which has grown in recent years to include Smoke 2013: Whiskey, Cigar and BBQ Festival (this Saturday), Savor NYC 2013: An American Craft Beer and Food Experience (June 14 and 15) and NYC Bacon Bash (June 23).
According to GoogaMooga co-founder Jonathan Mayers, two dates for this year’s three-day festival are sold out, and opening night (with a concert headlined by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) is getting there.
He believes there will be a total of 90,000 admissions, nearly 70,000 of which are free, with food prices averaging $11 per taste. Of the remaining 20,000 ticket-holders, the great majority will have paid $49.50 to $54.50 to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And a much smaller percentage (Mayers refuses to give an exact figure) will have paid $79.50 for the “VIP Cocktail Experience” on the festival’s remaining two days, which includes five cocktails made by bartenders from elite drinking spots such as Pegu Club.
Mayers swears this year won’t be a repeat of last year’s fiasco, with Day 1 attendees reporting overcrowding and high prices for food and beer (when you could get it). To Mayers’ credit, things improved by Day 2 last year, and refunds were given to people who paid for entry.
This year, he says, the amount of space for all attendees will increase dramatically, more vendors are lined up and the process for getting food has been streamlined. “We will get this right,” he vows. “We will make this a world-class event.”
Some food fanatics have devised various survival tactics. At Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in Madison Square Park (June 8 and 9), which draws pit masters from across the country, a lack of seating can leave attendees with sore feet and indigestion.
So Jessica Diamond, who weathered a parched throat at GoogaMooga, devised a work-around.
Her friend obtained a Fast Pass ($125, with $100 redeemable on food and drink), allowing her to jump the lines while Diamond held a table.
“My friend came back every 15 minutes with plates of delicious food,” Diamond recalls. “Without my friend and her pass, though, I would have been in the uncomfortable position of holding the empty table for an hour while somebody else stood in line.”
Having attended several food festivals in New York and Chicago, she notes, “The food can be great at these events, but the question is this: Is it worth dealing with the crowds and the unpleasantness?”
After his Le Grand Fooding experience, the answer for Richard Wang is an emphatic no.
But he did find some great food in the city later that night.
“Afterwards, we went to the halal cart nearby,” he recalls. “I had a terrific hummus dish. It was worth every bit of the $6 I paid for it.”