Great American Food & Music Fest

Looks like they’re going to do this again in 2010 — but there is no way that I would pay a dime for a ticket to this event based on the complete disaster it was in 2009. There’s no reason to charge for tickets for this — all the food is so expensive, it should be covering the overhead.
Katz’s pastrami was good but portions were very small (especially given the large price).
Again, the lines were beyond ridiculous, the prices (for event tickets and food purchases) were insane, and there was absolutely no excuse for the parade of mistakes made during this event. Completely do not recommend.

The rating says is all! Oh my goodness this was a freakin waste of my time. Seriously 3 hours for a single plate of food, God himself must of cooked it for me if I had to wait that long.
My cousins and I paid like 40 bucks? for what we thought was going to be a fun day out with awesome food, yeah NOT!
I stood in line at the Katz Deli line also the Buffalo Wings that were not even hot. My other cousin got the BBQ that tasted like something you can get at the flea market. Seriously I was sooo hungry in line I had to ask a complete stranger for half of his pb&j sandwhich.
This by far was one of the most horribly unorganized events ever! I was even late for work that night because I just refused to leave before I had at least something to eat.
Note to the world: do not go, it’s def. not worth it.

How can a food and music festival be devoid of food and music?!
My friends and I had advanced tickets for this event and still had to wait 45 minutes to even get in. We couldn’t figure out what the wait was for since they weren’t checking bags or frisking people at the door. Once in, we spent another 30 – 40 minutes in line at the food fast pass to load up our wrist bands with money; however, the vendors shortly moved to a cash only system due to a system/​server failure from the high capacity of transactions. Regardless, with our wrist bands loaded up with money, we stood anxiously in long winding lines waiting to load our stomachs up with Katz’s Famous pastrami sandwich (that eventually disintegrated reminiscent of squeezing to the front of a bar to get a drink order). Three and a half hours later, we came up empty handed and light headed.
Pasta Pomodoro was our saving grace because they handed out free samples and there was no line. We quickly grabbed a bite there and proceeded to stand in another hour plus line for Junior’s Cheesecake (It probably took the contestants on Making the Band less time to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to get a slice for Diddy). Their classic cheesecake was OK but it was a little more melted/​mushy for my liking. I walked back to meet my friend who was still waiting in line for a Katz’s deli pastrami sandwich. I was able to catch a glimpse of Guy Fieri’s show but missed Bobby Flay’s show since I was waiting in line.
If that couldn’t get worse, I tried to get a soda but they ran out of hi-​c, iced tea, cherry coke and sprite! What the hell?!
There wasn’t much music at this event. Maybe they should have cranked up the tunes so waiting hours on end wouldn’t be as miserable but then again, the musical acts weren’t too impressive (one group sang a song with «girlfriend» as the only lyric for what seemed to be 7 minutes straight).
After many wasted hours, my friends and I were finally so fed up with this event that we tried to get a refund. We got the run around from the security and event staff. We got conflicting reports that they were handing out/​not handing out refunds. No one seemed to know what the hell was going on!!! Luckily, we hung around at bit longer (Why not? What’s another 30 minutes when you’ve already wasted 5 hours?), bitched and moaned long enough that we received full refunds on both tickets and parking.
In all, this festival was far from «great» and lacked both food and music; however, there was a never ending supply of angry Americans. I would have had more fun and less frustration flying to New York to get a Katz’s Famous pastrami sandwich and Junior’s Cheesecake. Even watching grass grow or plucking my nose hairs out one by one with a pair of rusty tweezers would have been more entertaining than this piece of shit festival. Not that I am planning on returning to this event next year, but I hope that they work out all the bugs for version 2.0.

If I could give this thing a zero then I would but I can’t so I won’t. Every other reviewer pretty much summed this thing up. It f’n sucked. I waited 2.5 hours for a lousy cheesesteak that tasted like crap. I could of made something better at home and my culinary skills suck. I wonder who actually watched the music/​show parts of the festival because I assume that everyone was in line for some crappy food.
Lines, lines and more lines. Awful. Saving grace was that it wasn’t that hot so we weren’t entirely baking in the sun. Thank god for that.

EPIC FAIL.
Should have been named the «Great American Line Waiting Festival.»
Parking was $ 15.
Food was overpriced.
Shitty execution of a great concept.
The lines were so long, people, including myself, waited for hours (as in, 2 – 3 hours) for mediocre… crud (think, soggy Philly cheeseless cheesesteaks). We ate it, of course, because we were starving. My friends and I were lucky, some people didn’t get to eat jack, because the vendors ran out of food (ahem, Katz pastrami sandwiches).
At the end of the day, the organizers could no longer deny that they fu*ked up royally, so my friends and I were refunded for the admission fee. We were still swindled out of a large amount of money on sub par food, however. Lesson learned. I really hope next year will be better.

What a disappointment! This Not-​So-​Great American Food and Music Festival was not worth the time and money. Walking in, I expected to enjoy some live music and aromas of some good cookin, but all I noticed were the lines and long lines, and more lines of people, and angry people. I knew right then, this was not going to be good! The lines were confusing, blocking main walkways. I didn’t even see any signs for direction.
The only highlight for me was the brisket and sausage from Southside Market Texas Barbeque. Maybe I was just really hungry. Although, I was more hungry for the pastrami sandwich from Katz, but I heard they ran out. The lines for Anchor Bar Buffalo Chicken Wings and Tony Luke’s Cheese Steak Sandwiches were always long and at a standstill. Sadly, people who paid more than we did had to wait in those lines. That’s why angry people left early, getting refunds. What a shame! I guess they weren’t anticipating so many people.
We stumbled across Guy Fieri’s afternoon demo. Wish he was on more. His book signing lasted only 45 minutes with a long line. So there goes that gift idea! The SF Weekly Burger Bash Challenge was a bit unorganized too. Out of five contestants, it was difficult to follow who they were and where they’re from. I did, however, catch Bobby Flay-​who was a judge– compliment Bistro Burger for a very «juicy ass» burger, the juiciest he’s ever had. *Smells a throwdown coming to SF*
I expected lines, but not mile-​long lines. I expected to eat more than one meal. I expected more food vendors. I expected more music. I expected cheaper parking. I expected a better layout. I expected to get (at least) more give-​aways/​samples for what I paid. And I expect to NOT participate next year. I still wouldn’t go even if I got in for free. They have a lot of improving to do!

THIS EVENT WAS ABSOLUTE CRAP.
I wasted my Saturday afternoon here and I probably would have enjoyed it better if I was doing chores at home or something other than being here at this extremely disorganized festival.
$ 15 for parking
$ 35 for entrance ticket (plus 1 food coupon)
There were 5 of us so we split up in different lines and here’s what went down:
30 minutes of waiting in line for tasty briskett and sausage (only thing worth it there)
3 hours of waiting in line for Philly cheesesteaks
3 hours, 15 minutes of waiting in line for Pink’s chili hot dogs
2 hours of waiting in line for Zingerman’s BLT (which taste like pure crap)
While waiting in line, they ran out of Katz’s pastrami sandwiches.
And they also ran out of Junior’s cheesecakes.
It was only 530pm & the festival was to go until 10pm.
A food festival running out of their main ingredient: FOOD.
WTF???
We got a complete refund on our tickets & parking. I felt slightly better after that but also felt as if this event was a total waste of time. I did get to see a glimpse of Bobby Flay but completely missed all the cook-​offs, shows, etc BECAUSE I WAS WAITING IN LINE.
3 HOURS FOR FOOD? I could have been halfway down to LA!!!

I wasn’t going to write a review because everyone already said everything. but I want to vent so let me start my venting right now:
1. Tickets were $ 21.50. .okay so it’s not that bad, but at the end of the day.. .I don’t think I would have paid even a friggin DOLLAR to come here for free food and to see Bobby Flay make a dumb burger that anyone else probably already knew how to make.
2. I was über excited to see Bobby Flay make his Cheyenne burger.. .the only thing I learned from his cooking session was that he’s not very funny and he’s kind of cocky.. .actually, I take that back. I already knew those things, but I guess I realized that I really don’t like him. If he showed us how he made his Mesa Grill sauce — that would have been kind of cool. .but no. he just takes his stupid jar out and pours it into a bowl and that’s that. And what was so special about this burger? The onion rings? The bacon? C’mon Bobby, we all know this. teach us something we DON’T KNOW!
4. Waiting in line to get INTO the festival grounds. We were really confused because we saw a long ass line, but then we saw people cutting or it actually seemed like there were two lines forming into one (this was a trend for the food lines actually — more like 5 lines merging into one). We were directed to go all the way around some fence and to go there and there and blah blah. .screw it, we just decided to go our own way and basically go against the flow of traffic so we could get to the end of the line. We kept walking and walking and walking and walking.. .FINALLY, we hit the end of the line. Needless to say it didn’t take THAT long, but it was probably because we were playing a «name a brand name with an animal logo» game. So we’re chuggin’ along and we finally get into the fest to realize HOLY FREAKIN MOLY. .there’s SO many people! How did people find out about this? I guess word of mouth because there wasn’t much advertising that went on about this event.. .crazy
3. The food. .well, lack of. .and waiting in line for hours. Need I say more? I don’t have to because everyone else experienced the same ordeal that I did. but I’m venting :) So we try to walk around and look at the various food stands and we don’t see anything that really appeals to us. Sure we shuold have expected it to be this way: burgers, sandwiches, hot dogs.. .nothing super special except for the fact that most of these places are outside of cali.. .It would have been a great experience if: #1 The lines weren’t so long and people were cutting in line #2 They didn’t run out of food and expect us to wait another hour for food, considering the fact that we were already waiting for 2 hours #3 People in line weren’t so rude and b*tching and complaining for the whole 2 hours while we were waiting in line.
So anyway we went to Katz’s Famous Deli to try their Pastrami Sandwich: We were lucky because they opened up a new line to the very right hand side and we were only a couple feet away. We thought, AWESOME! We’re gonna get out food soon.. .only to find out that even being a couple of feet away from the front takes about 2 hours to get to the window to order! And of course right when we’re almost there (we were 3^rd in line) we find out that they have run out of pastrami.. .Sure they got buffalo wings, but they came out cold and well. tasted store bought. (Didn’t try the dessert but I heard they had long lines and people were disappointed)
4. The music.. .what music? I didn’t really hear anything nor did I have ANY CLUE as to who these musicians were. If you’re going to have a food and music fest, at least have people that are decently well-​known: B-listers…I guess you don’t HAVE to have A-​listers, although you did with Bobby Flay and Guy Fieri, but we should at least have HEARD of them.. .(and maybe people did know the musicians, but everyone I talked to didn’t have a clue)
I don’t really blame the workers, I blame the person in charge of this event who didn’t think to realize the potential of this event to be a huge turnout. obviously they didn’t think it was going to be that big of a success so they screwed us over but ultimately screwed themselves. How did they not think to be smart about maybe having more food than necessary, or having more space than what they think they’ll need? Isn’t have more than having less better and smarter? I guess NOT! Sheesh, I think I could have done a better job with my friends organizing this event.. .
I say that I’m not going to go next year, but knowing that this was their first year doing this event.. .HOPEFULLY they’re reading our reviews and they really take every criticism we give and make this event 1000x better next year. .We’ll see, but I’m not going to expect anything.
Does anybody know if we can still get refund for our tickets?
–Dangit, can’t write anymore bc I’m over the 5000 character limit.. .booo!

Wait in line for parking 15 minutes
Wait in line to get in 20 minutes
Wait in line for PINK’s hotdog 50 minutes
Wait in line for KATZ pastrami sandwhich 1.5 hours… only to find out that they are out of Pastrami.
Wait in line to get a refund 35 minutes.
Wait in line to get out of the parking lot 20 minutes
Great American Line Festival — FML

I wrote an email to complain about what a disaster the event was.
Here’s what they emailed to me and HOW TO GET A REFUND!!! At least they are doing that much…
«Thank you so much for taking the time to write. I am so incredibly sorry about what you went through.
We certainly had every intention of making everything perfect. The fact is, the problems were not anyone’s fault by ours. Not the building’s, not Live Nation. We wanted to keep lines down so we invested all this money (upfront…not too smart) for the „cashless system“ that would do just that… according to the company that was running it. This company had a resume that included NASCAR races (200,000 +) so when we heard that every transaction could be made in 3-​seconds or less, we were in. We had them come in a week early and start testing… making sure everything worked… then as we opened the doors, the system failed.
The Fest did have an emergency system in place and cash banks and credit card machines were distributed prior to the show, but it took us nearly 45-​minutes to switch over and by that point, we had very large lines. Added to that, it was our first year and we had no way to really judge attendance. We looked at „pre-​sales“ and doubled them thinking that was safe… and we would be over. We were wrong… and very sorry.
Anyway, I know you just wanted to know how to get a refund, but it is important to us as producers for you to understand that we do care and put years of hard work into this just to have one company take us down.
Now to your question. It isn’t the easiest process, but it does work.
PLEASE SEND A PHOTOCOPY OF YOUR TICKETS BACK TO
Shoreline Amphitheatre
One Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94 043
ATTN: BOX OFFICE REFUNDS
Again, we are all so sorry this happened… but at the same time are not giving up. We will come back next year on our tour and will have something special for those who were put out this year.
Thank you again for writing.»
Jim Lewi

This event truly deserves a negative star or NO STAR at least!!! but I can’t!
I think having chosen it at shoreline was a big mistake. You need SPACE to allow the THOUSANDS of people to space out… THOUSANDS of people trying to get food from 20 restaurants. You should have known theres going to be issues!!!
When you stuff them in these very small spaces it doenst work! this obviously led to people forming lines that just circled and circled leading to nowhere. NO OnE knew what line was for what!!!
NEVER HAVE I SEEN SUCH A POORLY ORGANIZED EVENT!!! NEVER!!! PISSES ME OFF that I wasted 5 hours of my weekend at this! Ddint get a single bite. Didnt get anything!!! couldnt even see the shows!!!

Why can’t I give ZERO stars!!!
This was the most painful experience I’ve ever had (food-​related, that is).
I’m sure there are worse things in life which would make this sound funny in the long run (like getting shot, going to war, being homeless, losing a family member). Don’t mean to make it sound too sarcastic but seriously … this i the granddaddy of all cluster *bleep*s if I’ve ever seen one.
My friends and I dropped by there around 1PM so we could avoid the opening food lines… NOT.
We parked… then walked the half mile to the back of the «entrance» line. It took us about a half hour (which wasn’t SO bad since we had plenty of company).
The first (and LAST) thing I consumed there was a pretty tasty $ 12 beer! There was only a 5 minute line for this so I thought, «Hey…this day ain’t that bad».
I didn’t want to waste my food ration ticket which was inspired by WWII on anything small so I planned to get some delicious BBQ brisket.
That was the beginning of the end. The lines were horrifically long for the burgers… so that should have foreshadowed the painful slow death that was to be the «COMBINED» line for the brisket and chicken wings.
As we lined up around what we estimated was an hour behind the next visible loop of the line the guy in that portion warned us that he’d been in the line an hour and a half already and he estimated he had another hour to go after that.
I knew of no earthly food which was worth waiting 2.5 hours to get so I convinced my friends to cut our losses and get out of this festival of pain like bats out of hell (if hell is characterized by long lines, that is).
So by the time we exited we lined up at the ticket booth to request refunds. This line moved even slower than the food lines!!!
We waited half an hour and did not move! I think I have a sun tan the shape of some leaves (since we stood under a tree which was useful as a landmark/​sundial, etc).
We were yelled at by «the tatooed girl» telling us «it’s not their fault» and «stop screaming angrily» at them. We all looked at one another in satirical amusement and agreed that none of us were really mad (surprisingly) and that we just wanted to know if we could just get our full refund and forget the day even happened (kinda like if you were molested in the shower at the gym). You know… something to bury and repress in the darkest corner of your mind.
So we completely gave up on the refund line and decided… there should be other ways to get a refund (I might have to just open a credit card dispute).
We warned a LOT of people who were still filing in after 3PM to just «not bother» and save themselves!
LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE — the only appropos phrase for that day.
I hope they really clean up their planning process for the next one, select a more suitable venue which can handle more than 10,000 people and for every vendor… they should have 5 windows open to handle the hungry people. If you were lucky enough to get your first meal free (included in the ticket price) did you really have the energy to wait another 2 hours to get your next sample of food?
At least on our way out the very helpful parking attendents gave us back our $ 15. That saved me from total berserker-​wolverine-​rage and /​or crying in the corner of a padded cell.
I’m trying not to let this experience sour my expectations of any future events… but having been in the bay area a long time… I know most «ART & WHINE» festivals in smaller towns… kind of also suck too…
Katz’s Deli… and Juniors (cheesecakes)…I will be seeing you in PERSON next time while I’m NYC!
I literally asked people while on my cell phone… if it was possible to call in an air strike to end our suffering…
I prayed for the liberating and calming shower of cluster bombs… ahhhh
But really… this event sucked big donkey [anatomical part] and I really hope future events are better planned!
Luckily St. Johns Bar & Grill had ½ price burgers nearby!!!

Definitely agree with my fellow Unilocalers– this event should be given 0 stars. I was looking forward to this event for over a week and left today fully disappointed. I prepaid my ticket online and then when I got there, the line to buy food was as long as an amusement park line (like Disneyland!) I am not joking here. I walked around to see if there were shorter lines at other food places, but all were about 1+ hour wait. No wayyyyyyyy. I came hungry and was not about to wait.
I walked out and asked for a refund. Lots of people were doing the same. I guess I wasn’t the only one who was disappointed.

We just knew this was going to be insane so we went early which is key. Doors opened at 12pm but we arrived at 11:30 and got in line to enter. We expected a line but we were not too far in and it moved rather quickly (the only line that did).
Once inside we were informed that we had to get a «food quick pass» (this is were the disaster begins). Evidently, none of the booths were accepting cash or plastic. Your transactions are done by swiping your «food pass» (plastic wristband) which you can buy in $ 10 increments. The booth issuing the passes was actually experiencing technical difficulties. We wanted a receipt but were told the system wasn’t working properly and he couldn’t give us one. We put our foot down. If it’s not working properly, how do we know what if any dollar amount was scanned in to the wristband?! Finally, a receipt got printed but this was a sure sign of what was to come.
We hit Katz famous delicatessen of NY first so my hubby could try the infamous pastrami sammich. Already they having problems with the «food pass» system. Laptops are used to process the orders and they were running slow and they were not trained properly on the systems. We later found out this is the first time they tried this method which was no surprise to us. Lucky we came early so we were only third in line. We finally get his sandwich (which he thought was alright) and I wanted to hit the Tony Luke’s Philly Cheesesteak booth of Philadelphia PA. We get there to find no line because we are informed they had issues with their propane tanks and won’t be up for another hour or so. WTH? Disappointed, we head to burger Meister of SF. Although I live here, I have never been there. I was about fifth in line and I have to say it was probably the smoothest running booth here. Once you get past trying to pay with the damn «food pass» (yes them too) it ran super quick. Guys were nice and the burger was a-​ok. Next we hit Charles Chocolates of Emeryville Ca. Another spot I have not hit but best believe I will since they in my hood. No line yet (yay for being early) and the staff was very nice. Again issues with the «food pass». A couple tries later and I get my huge ass smores — now I’m content! On to Graeters ice cream. Another Oprah made me do it moment. That and I hear it cost a bill to get this shipped to you so of course I had to see what the hype was about. We get to the booth and major problems with the «food pass». She swiped it and nothing. Swiped it again and nothing and she’s clearly frustrated. She directs us to another gal at the other window, I go and hubby stays and tries to figure out if we were actually charged. She basically argues with him and slams the window on him. If I ever find my pinay sistah walking down the street, it’s on. Then they shut down and tell us to come back. We did shortly after and finally got our ice cream, on a fluke. No line because they had just opened one window because they think one of their systems just got up. We swiped our bands and it work… hallelujah! All that and it wasn’t even anything special. Damn you Oprah!
It’s now 1:30 and it’s crowded. Lines are now super long and still growing. My girl Michelle B. arrived and is starving. So they pick a line and wait (4 hours at Katz). At this time, the «food pass» system crashes. They close it down completely and decide they only taking cash now. WTF. Good thing we spent ours with the exception of a few dollars. My hubby and I went to the «food pass» booth to see if we could retrieve what we had left. They have no system to check so they offered us two tickets for two free plates at any booth. They lucky it was only a few dollars otherwise this would not be acceptable. We started to wait in the Philly cheesesteak line since they were finally up but we just couldn’t do it (line was crazy ridiculous). I would have also loved to tried the Southside Market Texas Barbeque of Elgin, TX. Pink’s of LA I’ve had so no loss there. A few other booths but nothing I really wanted. They definitely need more booths especially with the amount of peeps they catering to. We finally decided to get two smores to go with our tickets since the dessert lines were the shortest and hit the road.
I’m just so relieved we got our tickets online prior to the event for only $ 21.50 because we saw it advertised for $ 35 at the door the day of the event. However, the group in front of us got charged $ 45 and were not happy about it. Honestly, it’s really not worth waiting in those lines and dealing with the unreliable payment system. We didn’t even get to watch any of the live entertainment because we were trying to hit as many booths before the crazy lines started. Bobby Flay was not to be found either (not a fan anyway) and I don’t blame him.
All in all: Great concept — horrible execution!
P. S. Thanks to Geek Squad booth for hooking the hubby up with a free tee and gift card to Best Buy!

This event was a complete DISASTER! It was a waste of our time. The line to get in was LONG and wrapped around one of the parking lots although it moved at a decent pace. There were WAY too many people. Imagine Disneyland during the holidays but 10x worse. The lines for food was ridiculous and it wasn’t even guaranteed that you would get food once it was your turn up. What is a food festival without food? At least at Disneyland or any amusement park no matter how long you’ve been waiting in line you are guaranteed food. This was not the case at this event.
The only thing good was the entertainment and that’s not enough for me to EVER come back. This event was unorganized and an utter waste of our time. Definitely not kid friendly. NEVER AGAIN even if it was free.

You know it’s a bad sign when walking to the event you hear people telling you: «not worth it, don’t go in, worst ever, waste of time».
Well we got the hint but we decided to poll more people along the way while heading into the festival located in the Shoreline Amphitheatre.
And the consensus was the same:
–food was running out and many items were completely unvailable
–long lines for everything (comparable to being at an amusementment park)
–food is expensive in addition to the $$ admission price
–long lines meant no time to enjoy the music or other attractions
–cooking demos were short and uninformative
–Bobby Flay was not hosting and barely stuck around
All this was more than enough to convince us to turn back around and get out of there. Cha ching. $ 35 saved.

This event totally should have been called the Great American Long Line Festival! Here are more of my random thoughts/​observations:
— There were more people there without food than with.
— At most booths, the entire line would cheer after the person in the front got their food. How f’d up is that?!
— I saw someone drop their half-​wrapped Luke’s cheesesteak on the ground, but they still ate it because they waited 2 hours for it.
— How’s this for irony: the only place without a line was the pasta pomodoro window that had FREE food!
— Speaking of free, my friends got free ice cream! I was excited to get mine but when I got there, they were charging $ 6. I was told that I was 15 minutes too late… even though they still had freezer-​fulls of the little cups. WTF?
— Bobby Flay was cool… he even made a snide remark about the lines. Only got to see a portion of his burger-​judging bit though, b/​c I was… you guessed it — in line.
I saw the apology posted by the organizer… thanks but as for whether I’ll be back — Eek! Methinks not.

If any event I’ve ever attended deserves one star or less it would have to be this one simply for the fact that in order to get anything we needed to stand in a line, and it was so damn unorganized!
We arrived about 11:30 in the morning and the line outside was just starting to grow. The gates were scheduled to open at noon, but the line didn’t start to move until 12:15. Little did we know at the time that this was going to be one of the shorter lines of the day.
We got to the gate okay. They scanned our tickets and fastened some weird looking wrist band to our wrists. As soon as we got into the gate we heard some lady shouting about the food fast pass. They told us none of the vendors would accept cash and we had to preload our wristbands with either a cash amount or a credit card. That was another line.
Southside Market, based in Elgin, TX — they were offering their BBQ Brisket and Sausage Sandwich. There was no line for this. In fact, we were among the first dozen people to order. The wristband scanned okay. I threw a bit of the original Southside BBQ sauce onto my brisket and grabbed an empty picnic table nearby. Gene Burns of KGO Radio was doing a live feed onstage at the time with 3 generations of the Bracewell Family, proprietors of the Southside Market BBQ, so we learned a bit about the food we were eating. Served on soft white bread with pickle chips, chopped white onion and a slice of cheese the hot, tender brisket seasoned only with a dry rub and oakwood smoked for up to sixteen hours was lean and flavorful. Their trademark beef sausage was firm and juicy. The BBQ sauce was slightly sweet and spicy and had a real nice smoky flavor to it. Although the bread fell apart I’d give the food 4.5 stars.
Our next stop was Pink’s Famous Hot Dogs based in Los Angeles. There was a slow moving line. I didn’t understand this. It’s a friggin’ hot dog. You throw it on a hot dog bun, add condiments and you’re done. Why the hell it took 45 minutes I don’t know. I ordered one with mustard and relish. It was disappointing. The casing was chewy and the meat was too salty. I’d give Pink’s 2 stars. As I stood there waiting for my hot dog the computers crashed. Chaos to follow!
We walked around the venue for a bit and decided to go for food again at 2 PM. Frank and Terresa’s Original Anchor Bar Buffalo Wings from Buffalo, NY and Katz’s Famous Pastrami Sandwiches from New York shared the same booth space. Whoever thought of that is stupid. The incredibly long line snaked around and inched along with people moving closer every ten minutes. It took nearly an hour for us to get within ten feet of the order window when suddenly everything stopped. They said they ran out of pastrami and it would take up to an hour to get more. What I didn’t understand was why the hell did they stop selling buffalo wings also just because they ran out of pastrami. The line just came to a standstill. They eventually got started again but with so many people cutting into the lines and total chaos abound the line moved maybe one foot in the next hour. After standing in line for 2 hours and 45 minutes and the announcement that they had run out of pastrami again we threw out some F bombs and decided to abandon the line. We got nothing! Minus 5 stars! F*ck you Katz’s for not being prepared!
Tony Luke’s, based in Philly had 4 long lines snaking out of their booth. The lines at Tony Luke’s moved in spurts and we finally got our cheesesteaks. The sandwich was small. The beef was lean and tasty and the provolone cheese whiz was nice and creamy. Was it worth the 1 hour 20 minute wait? Hell no! 3 stars for the cheesesteak.
By now lots of pissed off people had left the venue. Many of the lines disappeared. Zingerman’s, based in Ann Arbor, MI was doing bacon samplers which included 4 types of bacon for $ 2 a pop. I loved these. I had two plates! We got to the dessert line to find out that most of the dessert items had already sold out. I did get to sample the Chocolate Bouchons from Yountville’s Bouchon Bakery. They were chocolatey but very oily. As we made our way around towards San Francisco’s Burgermeister I ran into an old buddy who offered their cheeseburger and fries plates for free!
We stuck around a bit to watch Guy Fieri do a very fun show on the main stage since we weren’t able to view any of the other shows because we were standing in lines all day long. My friends told me afterward, «Never again!» I’ve posted some photos.

I had some high hopes for this event. It’s just too bad that there were very few hits and many more misses.
Famous pastrami sandwich from Katz’s Famous Delicatessen (NY): Awesome! Wow! Without a doubt the best pastrami I’ve had to date. The pastrami was tender and full of flavor. This was my first stop once I got in the event, so luckily the line wasn’t ridiculously long. (5 stars)
The original buffalo wings from Frank and Theresa’s Original Anchor Bar Buffalo Wings (NY): Very good chicken and sauce. (4 stars)
Sausage and beef brisket from Southside Market Texas Barbeque (TX): Sausage was quite good but the beef brisket had way too much fat on it. (3 stars)
«America’s best peanut butter and jelly sandwich» from June Taylor (CA): A PB&J using Smucker’s Goobers on Wonder Bread is worlds better. (1 star)
S’more from Charles Chocolates (CA): A nice creative twist on the campfire favorite, but I prefer the good old open-​flame-​roasted marshmallow and Hershey’s chocolate squished in between two Honey Maid graham crackers. (3 stars)
Chili cheese dog from Pink’s Famous Hot Dogs (CA): It was alright. I think Top Dog in Berkeley is much better. (2 stars)
Bagel with cream cheese and Nova Scotia salmon from Barney Greengrass (NY): Quite good. (4 stars)
Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip from Graeter’s Famous Ice Cream (OH): This is supposed to be their most popular flavor and I didn’t think it to be very special. Popular flavors from Mitchell’s and Bi-​Rite in SF are much better. (2 stars)
Cheesecake from Junior’s Most Fabulous Cheesecake and Desserts (NY): Not the best I’ve had, but pretty good. (3 stars)
Chocolate bouchons from Bouchon Bakery (CA): Very rich and chocolaty. (3 stars)
Bottled water: $ 5 for bottled water!?! Even if OPEC had a stake in bottled water sales they wouldn’t have charged this much! (–5 stars)
Event lines: Lines were ridiculously long and completely unorganized. If you didn’t get to the event by 1 p.m. you could have easily found yourself waiting in line for food for hours. Lines in the later afternoon/​early evening hours were much shorter probably because so many people were fed up with the lines. The computerized wristband system was a good idea, in theory, until the computer system crashed harder than our stock market. (1 star)
Entertainment: I didn’t know any of the musical performers and although I didn’t care much for some of the music, they were all good live performers and good musicians in their respective genres. The Bobbly Flay chef demo and SF Weekly burger challenge were pretty entertaining. (3 stars)
Overall: Definitely not the best festival I’ve ever been to, the food was a little disappointing at times, and it got expensive really quick. At least I was around good friends and enjoyed the company I was in.

Why don’t you allow me to put negative stars Unilocal?
Hey…SeriousEast…Livenation…Tom Levine. organizer of the festival.
THANK YOU for embarassing me and my friends.
Thank you for ruining my reputation as a host for mentioning
to my friends that they should come to this event.
THank you for letting us wait an hour to get into the event,
Thank you for not organizing the lines and letting people cut in on the long way in… aggravating everyone.
Thank you for then introducing a cashless food pass system that was NOT tested and you used us all as guinea pigs on the DAY OF the event. WHO does that by the way???
Thank you for making everyone go in endless lines that lead to overwhelmed food vendors who ran out of food, and also didn’t know to accept cash or not, because your cashless system failed and you left the vendors, and customers unprepared. (Imagine if our country went into a cashless sysem and it crashed??? This was totally a metaphor for many of us)
THank you for making THOUSANDS wait in energy sapping sunny weather. We got deyhydrated and were taken to exhaustion and ultimate frustration for waiting in these neverending lines.
THank you for misdirecting us when we all found out that we could get refunds We went from stand to stand, office to office, and finally went back to the ticket aisles.
The line for refunders outnumbered those who wanted to buy tickets.
We TRIED to warn those who were buying tickets to not bother…“it’s chaos’.but like blind sheep… they all were willing to burn away their cash. What a sociological statement that was… the blind leading the blind.
We were the lucky ones… we only paid 21 dollars from our 4 pack and FINALLY got our money back after waiting an hour in the return line.
I could feel and sense the outrage of those who paid 200 plus dollars for your premium packages and got nothing in return.
You can keep the 15 dollars you stole from me for parking fees.
NO THANK YOU for ever trying to invite me again.
I’m sure you’ll see a whole BUNCH of your angry patrons in court.
Nice job Serious EATS and Tom Levine.
Please don’t spend my 15 bucks all at once.