The lines in San Fran; Danny Meyer and fam.
The lines at the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party might’ve been a bit trying (a Chowhounder reports an hour wait in the Fast Pass line for Salt Lick, which ran out of brisket by mid-afternoon both days), but for the most part New Yorkers took it in stride. (At least, Danny Meyer certainly did — that’s him with two of his kids, and we also spotted Marco Canora braving the crowds, unless that was just a heat hallucination.) Not the case over in San Francisco this weekend, where Serious Eats tried to bring cult favorites like Katz’s, Junior’s, Pink’s of L.A., and Tony Luke’s of Philly together for the Great American Food and Music Festival. A swell idea, but it did not go well.
In case you missed the flood of irate comments over at Serious Eats (at least one of them comparing the event to Altamont), MenuPages San Francisco has a report from the scene: “A big mob of people with no food at a food festival didn’t seem right, so we decided to go back out and see if we could find someone that had actually eaten something. It was hard.” To add to that, even those who did score a pastrami sandwich questioned its authenticity (didn’t L.A.’s disastrous Carnegie experiment teach West Coasters not to try to import New York deli sandwiches?) Ed Levine apologized that an electronic payment system failed early in the game, but it just wasn’t good enough for a commenter who wrote, “Please try to just admit it was a royal screw up all the way around.” Maybe Katz’s should’ve brought its time-tested paper-ticket system with it? Phew. Anyway, let’s hand it to Levine, a bona fide food lover, for good intentions. And, so we can put all of this behind us, let’s focus on something positive: Ed Mitchell manhandling a giant slab of pork.
Photo: Melissa Hom
Hurry Up and Wait at the Great American Food and Music Fest [MenuPages San Francisco]
Earlier: A Look Back at the Block Party, and at Jim Mamary’s New ’Cue Spot
Previously on Grub Street...
