What If They Gave a Lunch and Nobody Came? Tasty Tuesday Falls Short

The year's first was held at the community center yesterday, and it was, in the words of one of the food truck operators, "Not what we expected."

"I was under the impression there were going to be farm tents out here," said David Musgrave of Fish On! Chips, one of only two food trucks to show up for the May 1 event.

The other food truck was a new one, The Awful Falafel operated by Gabe Nahas. "It could have been better," he said as he counted his day's receipts. Awful Falafel sold some 25 lunches - far better than the seven served by Fish On!

"The city seemed hesitant to really do the event," said Musgrave. "If you're going to do the event, do the event."

With two food trucks and no farm tents or other presence, to call the turnout "light" would be generous.

"The first couple of weeks last year," Musgrave recalled, "we had five trucks, maybe a half-dozen to a dozen farmers and craft vendors."

Last year's location near the intersection of Expressway and Snyder Lane also probably helped attendance, he added, due to its better visibility. There was not much signage on Snyder for the event pointing to the open space in front of the ticket offices.

Rohnert Park  in February last year, following similar events in Santa Rosa, and , all with many of the same vendors. There are perhaps a dozen food trucks in the Santa Rosa area, and they share social networking and other contacts to generate business for all, Musgrave said.

"What I'd like to see is a mobile app for mobile food trucks," he said, a way to find out where any of the informal group of food vendors is at any given time.

"Last year most of the crowds we had coming out were from social media contacts, and online sources like Patch," he added.

In city market manager Laure Tatman, who spearheaded both Tasty Tuesdays and the Friday Night Farmers Market, said it was a learning experience.

Tatman attributed the decline in business to not enough word of mouth, an area that lacks foot traffic, vendors and producers moving on to other larger markets during summertime and the .

Weather today was in the mid-70s and clear. What was missing was the lunch crowd.