Paul Bass Photos
Ricky Evans kept the ribs coming to whet appetites for an upcoming festival that will feed the foodie masses while collecting money to jumpstart the careers of more New Haven entrepreneurs.
Evans parked his mobile Ricky D’s Rib Shack outside City Hall (rather than its usual spot by Yale’s art gallery) at lunchtime Wednesday to participate in the announcement of the first-ever New Haven Food Truck Festival to be held on Long Wharf on May 30 and 31.
Some 30 mobile food operations are expected to roll into the festival, along with two days’ worth of live music and a kids’ carnival.
The Harp administration, through its new Small Business Service Center, organized the event along with the Economic Development Corporation and Evans, a recent graduate of the center’s training program.
“Food trucks are hot,” Mayor Toni Harp declared at the announcement, held on City Hall’s steps. “This is a Food Truck City. And food trucks are small business.”
The festival’s goal is twofold: To highlight and boost the fortunes of the city’s diverse food-truck industry, in which more than an estimated 1,000 people work; and to raise money for a micro-loan and micro-grant program that the small business center plans to launch for local entrepreneurs. The program will target start-ups, which often have trouble obtaining crucial financing in their first 12 months of operation, said Jackie James (pictured at Wednesday’s announcement), who oversees the small business center.
“I’m looking at that barbecue over there right now,” said WYBC’s Juan Castillo, one of the event’s sponsors, as he described the live-music portion. It will feature R&B on Saturday, gospel on Sunday. (Click here for information on signing up as a vendor or sponsor.)
Perhaps the best advertisement for the event came after the official remarks, as lines of hungry customers lined up for Lunch Box 23’s Shrimp Po Boy and Maple Bacon Cheeseburger sliders …
… arepas served up by Ayarepa’s Ernesto Garcia Hernandez …
… and Evans’s “world famous ribs,” pulled pork and brisket. Since graduating from the city program, Evans said, he has connected with a potential lender. He has expansion plans — hoping to move into the hot corner of Munson and Winchester outside Science Park.