One of the most satisfying elements of my job as a county supervisor has been working with my neighbors to create Food Truck Friday at Morgan Park. This wonderful biannual event fills a tiny triangular park with hundreds of people who buy freshly prepared food from over a dozen food trucks along the park perimeter.
Food Truck Friday is the brainchild of two park neighbors, Kirsten and Sheri. They were both integral to starting the group Friends of Morgan Park. Sheri is the proprietor of a store across the street from Morgan Park. She noted that there are few options for food this far south on Kinnickinnic Avenue during the Bay View Neighborhood Association’s biannual Gallery Night events. She and Kirsten put their heads together, and Food Truck Friday began in the late summer of 2014.
We expected maybe a few dozen people to show up to partake from the five food trucks that day, but well over five hundred people came to the park that day!
Morgan Park is a little green triangle of grass and tall trees, less than an acre in size. It’s uncommon for there to be more than two or three people in the park for any length of time. So imagine now five hundred folks clamoring around food trucks, sitting in lawn chairs and enjoying the company of neighbors. Despite its size, the crowd was very good to the park, making sure to find trash cans and clean up after themselves. Once the people and the food trucks had left, you could hardly tell there had been an event there.
The following four Food Truck Fridays have each been bigger and better-attended. We look forward to the next one this June!
Below: The smell of hickory barbecue wafts across Morgan Park during Food Truck Friday on June 6, 2014.
Haas414: Milwaukee Writ 