Geneseo’s beloved Chowhound food truck is a staple for most students when looking for a bite to eat. At the end of the day, everyone loves a good food truck. So when 11 food trucks showed up to Campus Auxiliary Services’ Food Truck Frenzy on Thursday Sept. 17, it was understandably a remarkable hit.
From delicious grilled cheese to the fun Coco Bongos drink containers, the event brought faculty and students together. “It really created that sense of community we would love to continue,” CAS marketing coordinator Rebecca Stewart said.
In an email interview, CAS director of culinary operations and executive chef Jonna Anne noted: “You saw people gathering, sharing food and great conversation,” she said. “The energy level of the campus is buzzing and people are smiling and having fun.”
The Frenzy consisted of various food trucks with a large assortment of food, including Cheesed and Confused, Smoothies Plus, Le Petit Poutine, Bento Box, Tom Wahl’s and others. Cheesed and Confused—a local food truck—had gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches. One of these grilled cheeses paired with Tom Wahl’s famous root beer made for a delicious lunch on the go.
Fall 2014 marked Geneseo’s first food truck festival. With the additional success of this year’s, CAS plans to host it more in the future. “When we first came up with the idea, we were really just looking for an event that brought more variety and excitement to campus and broke up the monotony of dining,” Stewart said, “Food should be fun.”
Not only did this event bring great food and people together while adding to campus enthusiasm, but it also helped the community. “One thing that most people don’t realize is that we don’t charge any registration fee for the food trucks. What we do instead is encourage the vendors to give an optional $50 donation to a charity,” Stewart said. “It’s something that’s important to us.”
The donations from this event went to the Livingston County Humane Society. Last year’s festival donations went toward breast cancer research and the next food truck event’s donations will be put toward Chances in Changes—a local non-profit serving victims of domestic violence.
“I love this event,” Anne said. She added that it will most definitely be a reoccurring thing to look forward to on campus. So for all students, faculty and staff who missed out, Food Truck Frenzy will return in November and hopefully in the spring as well.
“It’s about having fun and creating some excitement around dining and community,” Stewart said.