Food Trucks, Bands & Vendors to Fill Newark Avenue Saturday for Jersey City’s First-Ever ‘All About Downtown’ Festival
By Elizabeth Gibson • Sep 15th, 2011 • Category: Arts, Blog, Food, News
The Historic Downtown Special Improvement District (HDSID) in Jersey City is set to add a new cultural event to its already chock-full repertoire this weekend with the inaugural All About Downtown Street Festival.
The festival, which runs from noon to 7 pm on Saturday at the Grove Street PATH plaza and along Newark Avenue west to Jersey Avenue, is being organized with the Jersey City Craft Mafia. More than a concert or a food market (although it will indeed be both), the festival will feature dozens of local artists and artisans, merchants, nonprofits and other vendors (JCI will be there, so be sure to come say hi). There is a full lineup of live music scheduled for Saturday as well (see schedule below), and plenty of family friendly fun, like face painting, storytelling and a bounce house.
The festival will also showcase some of “the hottest food trucks in the metro area,” HDSID operations manager Nikol Floros tells JCI.
That list includes some trucks well-known to Jersey City foodies, like Taste of India, Lucinda Creperie, Home by the Range and Two Pitas in a Pod, as well as some that don’t usually come to Jersey City, like Korilla BBQ, which was recently featured on the Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race. Other trucks in the lineup include Coolhaus (ice cream sandwiches), Luke’s Lobster (lobster rolls), La Bella Torte (desserts), Mama Marci’s (pasta, hot dogs, salads and sandwiches) and Gorilla Cheese NYC (grilled cheese sandwiches).
“The HDSID created this event to showcase Downtown to Jersey City, and the rest of New Jersey, as a cultural destination,” Floros says. The event falls in line with the other regular events the organization oversees, like the Groove on Grove series of free outdoor live music and the twice-weekly farmers market at the Grove Street PATH plaza. The overarching goal of all the events, Floros says, is to make Downtown Jersey City a better place to live, work and visit and to spur the local small-business economy.
“All those interested in supporting their local economy should come,” she says. “Anyone and everyone should come check out what Downtown Jersey City has to offer.”
MUSIC LINEUP:
Noon: Beninghove’s Hangmen
1 pm: Sandra Small and the Smallworld Band
2 pm: Ghetto Folk
3 pm: Fort Courage [vintage country-pop-folk]
4 pm: Art House Productions demo
4:30 pm: Aminal
5:30 pm: PHWG
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Elizabeth Gibson is a communications professional with over five years experience in grant writing and medical fundraising. Raised in Allentown, Pa., Elizabeth first lived in the Jersey City Heights and now resides Downtown on Grove Street. Elizabeth works full time at a hospital in Manhattan and runs her own music blog.
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