FAQ

What is La Cocina’s San Francisco Street Food Festival?

The San Francisco Street Food Festival brings micro-entrepreneurs, informal food vendors and renowned chefs together to celebrate and promote great street food, entrepreneurial spirit and the vibrant communities of San Francisco. It is a fundraiser for La Cocina, a 510©3 non-profit and a celebration of local businesses.

What is La Cocina?

La Cocina is a non-profit incubator kitchen that provides affordable commercial kitchen space and industry-specific technical assistance to low-income and immigrant entrepreneurs who are launching, growing and formalizing food businesses.

What happened with last year’s event?

Last year, La Cocina hoped to get 5,000 people into our wonderful neighborhood. Surprisingly, we saw about 13,000 people on the street over the course of the day, and close to 20,000 in the neighborhood. As a result, much of the space felt overcrowded and occasionally chaotic. We are committed, this year, to keep lines down, to celebrating the neighborhood with open space and creating an environment where all kinds of people can come together to enjoy the wonderful foods of this city.

How will you control the crowds this year?

We have increased the physical space of the event in order to more appropriately accommodate the obvious demand for the event. We have hired an event production company as well as private security to be present on the day of the event. We will work with vendors to be more prepared and are committed to short lines for food and a festive atmosphere.

Who are all the vendors and why are they here?

At last year’s festival, of the 30 vendors, 23 of them were La Cocina clients or informal vendors. La Cocina works with low-income and immigrant entrepreneurs and is committed to using this festival to show all of the city exactly how talented these entrepreneurs are and how delicious their food is. We fully believe that the tacos from El Huarache Loco, the empanadas from Sabores del Sur or the Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dogs from Lucero’s Deliciosos are as good (and often better) than the foods made by this food-obssessed town’s top chefs. In order to further make this point, we have invited a hand-selected group of talented chefs with brick and mortar establishments to join this festival and create a unique opportunity to try foods from all over the city in one day. More than anything, we believe that the talented entrepreneurs who participated in this event did so because they love what they do. They thought nothing of standing outside for nearly 13 hours to serve foods priced between $3 and $8. We hope that this year you will get to enjoy each and every one of them and eat to your heart’s content.

Where is it going to be this year?

This year’s festival is tentatively planned for: Folsom St from 24th to 26th, 25th St from Shotwell to Treat, Treat from 25th to 26th and all of Garfield Park.

When is the festival going to be?

This year’s festival is scheduled for Saturday, August 21st, from 11 AM – 7 PM. Street closures will begin on Friday in the following way:

Folsom from 24th to 25th and 25th to 26th (intersection open) will close at 6 PM on Friday, August 20th.

All other streets will close at 12:00 AM on Saturday, August 21st

All streets will reopen at 10 PM on Saturday, August 21st

What about parking?

Due to the festival and the street closures, there will be no street parking within the hours listed above. We would like to work with all of our neighbors to ensure that you have access to monitored off-site parking should you need it. Please keep in mind that any driveways on the affected streets will also not be accessible. If you would like/need parking for the duration of this event, please contact caleb@lacocinasf.org or (415) 824-2729 ext 303.

How much is it to get in the festival?

Nothing, it’s free, but be sure to bring cash as the vendors will only be accepting cash or pre-purchased passport tickets.

I’m a food vendor and interested in participating in the festival whom do I get in touch with?

Unfortunately all vendor slots are full, but there are still ways you can participate or help promote the festival so give us a call or shoot us an email to hear more about these options.