Northwestern’s Associated Student Government and Dance Marathon held a food truck festival Sunday in the Blomquist Gym parking lot. The event featured 10 food trucks from Chicago, which typically sell a variety of foods on the street, and 15 percent of the proceeds will be donated to DM.
ASG’s presidential leadership initiative committee arranged the festival, which was free to attend and open to the NU community. The trucks sold assorted foods including empanadas, pasta and cupcakes. Participating food trucks were 5411 Empanadas, DucknRoll, Hummingbird Kitchen, Taquero Fusion, Sweet Ride, Flirty Cupcakes, Caponies Express, Wagyu Wagon, Haute Sausage and Beavers Donuts.
Weinberg freshman Katie Carr, a member of ASG’s presidential leadership initiative committee, checked WildCARDs at the Food Truck Festival to ensure only NU students and faculty attended the event. Carr said she knew Chicago had food trucks but NU students did not have many opportunities to experience them.
“This is a good way to connect the city to the students,” Carr said.
Medill senior Maura Brannigan, co-chair of the DM public relations committee, said this is the first time a food truck event has been arranged. She said ASG came up with the idea to donate to DM.
“I think it’s a really, really great experience for us,” Brannigan said. “We are really excited to be a part of it.”
Presidential leadership initiative committee member Crystal Kim came up with the idea. Kim, a Weinberg freshman, said food trucks were a large part of her high school experience in Los Angeles and she wanted to share them with NU.
Kim said many trucks sold out at the event.
“They were extremely happy and really want to come back too,” Kim said.
Many students want to make the Food Truck Festival a weekly event, Kim said. She also said the festival brought in more people than expected, and food trucks were still selling half an hour after the festival was scheduled to close.
“I think this will be happening again,” Kim said. “Next time we can bring in even more food trucks.”
McCormick junior Alma Gallegos and her friends decided to go to the festival for dinner. She said she did not think the event should have been limited to NU, but she enjoyed the festival enough to attend a similar event.
“I thought it should be open to Evanston,” Gallegos said.
Carr said food permits from the city of Evanston prevented them from selling to non-students.
Carr also said she thought some people might be more inclined to come because the festival will benefit DM.
“DM is just a really strong event on Northwestern’s campus,” Carr said. “It was kind of important to tie it back again to Northwestern.”
Kim said it was ASG president Austin Young’s idea to donate the proceeds to NU’s largest fundraiser. Young heads the presidential leadership initiative committee and said one goal of ASG and these events is to unite the NU campus.
“That starts with us, the student groups,” said Young, a Weinberg senior. “We are very proud of the work (the DM committees) do.”
Young said he thought the event went “magnificently.”
“There were a lot of people talking, laughing and hopefully having a good Sunday night,” he said. “Seeing that there were lines for so long was a good sign for the businesses and a fun time for us.”
