If you’re looking for the Connecticut Food Truck Festival 2014, click here.
New York has its food truck festivals, Boston, has its food truck festivals, and now Connecticut has a major festival, too. Let’s count ’em: 15-25 food trucks from Connecticut and surrounding states will show up at the Westbrook Tanger Outlets on 4/27-4/28/13. Plus, Westbrook Assistant Manager David DelVecchio says he’ll be updating the list (we’ll update for you, too) every few days as Food Trucks 2 Go brings new trucks in. There is absolutely no fee for attending, so you can use that saved dough to pig out. Here is the list as of 4/7:
- Away Café
- Away Café BBQ Truck
- Captain Marden’s Seafood (Saturday only)
- Caseus Cheese Truck (Sunday only)
- Chicken & Rice Guys (Saturday only)
- The Chubby Chickpea
- Cowabunga
- The Cupcake Brake
- Food Extrovert
- FryBorg
- The Happy Taco
- High Tide Gourmet (Sunday only)
- Hog Wild
- Lobstercraft
- Munchies Food Truck (Saturday Only)
- Spud Stud
- The Sugar Bakery Cup Cake
- Whey Station (Sunday Only)
The food trucks will be there for om noming from 11 am to 6 pm and there will be lots of live music to provide a soundtrack for your gorging pleasure. We’re talking The Red Hill Rockers, The Sin Sisters, The Shiney Lapel Trio, and others. There will also be live cooking demos from Clarke, Kitchen Aid, Soda Stream, Williams Sonoma, Chef Kashia, and lots more.
And, there will also be some major cook offs! On Saturday, 4/27, from 11 am to 4 pm the Westbrook Tanger Outlets is hosting the Backyard BBQ Cook Off. The contest is open to the public, but only 100 people can enter the contest for Best Ribs and Best Wings. While there is a cash fee to enter, all of that money goes into the prize pool making winning quite profitable. Call up (860) 399-8656 for your spot in the contest.
Then, wrapping things up, there will be the Tanger Chowder Cook Off on Sunday from 12 to 3 pm. Local restaurants will be competing to win the prize of best chowder and you get the direct benefit. Yes, don’t worry…you’ll get to try all the chowders and you’ll get to vote. All the proceeds are going directly to Westbrook High School Project Graduation: an organization run by parents to help pay for the graduation ceremony, balloons, a yearbook supplement, and a “safe grad night trip.”
We definitely plan on hitting this festival up! Which trucks are you most excited about? We definitely want to head back to FryBorg because we loved their chili fries and would love to try out Hog Wild, The Cupcake Brake, Munchies, and Spud Stud.
Here are complete details with times:
LIVE Music – Saturday & Sunday, 11am – 6pm
The Red Hill Rockers, The Sin Sisters, The Shiny Lapel Trio and Full Circle.
LIVE Demonstrations – Saturday & Sunday, 11am – 6pm
CLARKE, Kitchen Aid, Soda Stream, Williams Sonoma, Chef Kashia and more!
Backyard Barbecue Contest – Saturday, 10am – 4pm
Open to the public – first 100 entrants. Cash prizes and awards for the best Ribs and Wings. Call for details (860) 399-8656 Ext. 101.
Chowder Cook Off – Sunday, Noon – 3pm – Taste chowders from area restaurants and vote for your favorite – Bills Seafood, Lenny & Joe’s Fish Tale, Westbrook Lobster, The Old Schoolhouse Deli and The Restaurant at Water’s Edge. Proceeds to benefit Westbrook High School Project Graduation. Come early, while supplies last only
Westbrook Tanger Outlets Food Truck Festival and Cook Offs
Dan and Kristien Del Ferraro
OmNomCT 
Their ad said “gourmet food truck”, but I found mostly fast-food w/o much evidence of gourmet (except some desert trucks). But a larger issue is how management handled the crowd, and that I am very uncomfortable to return there for any reason. Here’s what happened:
I took my eldest daughter, age 4, to the Tanger Outlets in Westbrook, CT
on 7/12/14. We parked in the perimeter parking area and were waiting
for traffic to pass to then cross, however a tall dark-haired man
wearing dark sunglasses said to stay on the road, [then to cross]. I
nodded, and while holding my daughter’s hand, we followed along the road
and then crossed.
After crossing, I curiously asked what it was that we were avoiding. He said the mulch, which people can trip on
since it is not compact. There was a narrow strip of mulch (perhaps 5′)
where across the street where we stood when he made his statement.
I said: “Someone tripped on it?”
He said: “Not on my watch.”
I said: “Oh. Did it happen before?”
He said: “It’s none of your business.”
I inquired: “I was just curious.”
He replied: “Why the hell do you want to know?”
I said in a moderately quite voice, as my hand still held my daughter’s: “Don’t talk to me that way in front of my child.”
He told me to leave, and as I readied to leave, I asked his name, to which he refused to tell me.
As I walked away, I felt very uncomfortable. I saw no one wearing a
Tanger shirt, so I reached for my phone. I hoped to ensure no one else
would endure this experience by letting a manager know what happened.
In doing so, I noticed my hand was shaking to the point where it was
hard to dial the number to the Tanger office. But, I managed to do so
and then saw an employee, whom I asked if I may speak to a manager. She
brought me to one. However, the man she brought me to was the very man
who affected me and my daughter!
When he saw me, he said: “I want you to leave.”
I said I’m here to bring my daughter to the food and other event. I then
said I’d like to speak to a manager, and he said: “I am the manager.”,
to which I requested to speak to his manager and what his name is, to
which he replied Dave. Dave said, “I’m calling security.”
I said: “for what?”
He had the gall to say: “You’re harassing me.”
He called security, and I had told the employee that brought me there that
I had felt threatened by him, then I said: “I’m going to walk away and
bring my daughter to what we’re here for.” As I left, I think I heard
him cancel the request, but given how I see things work around there
when he’s in charge, I can only imagine what was in store for us if I
talked to security.
I got food for my daughter, and sat down.
I then noticed an uncomfortable tightness in my abdomen. We then
walked around, as my daughter asked, but as we did the tightness built
into a pain. I ended up leaving prematurely, and I don’t see myself
returning so long as that man may be there. Truly, there was nothing
else to this story of any significance I can identify. I remained
polite pretty much the whole time (I did get a bit panicky when he
angrily confronted me when the employee brought me to him), though
perhaps at a cost. The only silver lining is that I may now be more
empathetic toward people dealing with this kind of bullying.
A decade ago I had a decade of retail experience. There are many places
with zero tolerance for this kind of behavior by a manager, and despite
having two kids and a 1-month old, I felt it worth my time to write
about this experience to try and help others avoid the assistant manager
of Tanger Outlets, Westbrook, CT. But, whatever happens next is up to
whomever that can do something that reads about my experience.
P.S. On the way out, I saw an older couple cross the mulch.
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Sam, that’s a really bad experience. So sorry you went through that. No one deserves to be treated that way, especially at a place of business. Wish it was better Sam :(
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Thanks so much for your supportive comment. I hope someone somewhere will someday be able to do something to prevent that assistant manager from doing this any more. Customers should be treated kindly and respectfully, as well as with appreciation. Perhaps he was having a bad day, but yes, it isn’t okay how he acted. I’m sure that if I were to see him again, my heart would beat quickly as I am reminded of that experience I had yesterday.
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Agreed!
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I’m looking at my calendar and I see 4/26 and 4/27 as the Saturday and Sunday of that weekend. Am I reading the wrong details on the festival? Because you’ve posted 4/27 and 4/28. I don’t want to miss anything! :) thanks!
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Kristin, that was last year’s event. So sorry. We’ll have to put in the year into our events in the future so there’s no confusion. There IS a huge summer event coming up for you to keep your eyes on. We’ll post about it in a few months. :)
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