Latin Food Fest

Awesome. 100 food, wine and spirits exhibitors, live music by the Martini Kings, cooking demos, wine workshop and more.

Scam@! I ordered tickets on Jan. 2015 and the event website DID NOT disclose that it was a 21 and OVER event. My spouse and kids headed over there w/​our VIP tickets only to be turned away. I mentioned this to the lady at the event ticket counter and she promised me a full refund of my 4 VIP event tickets. I NEVER RECEIVED MY REFUND! I’m disputing the charges. I was contacted by the event planner and she conveniently put a screen shot of some other site with text stating the event was 21+Over! Going to the site NOW on 5÷27÷2015 it does not state you MUST 21+Over.They are just scamming me out of my refund that I was promised the day of the event. Both my tickets and my website purchase receipt NEVER STATED it was 21 and over. There were other couples with kids and strollers that were also turned away so I can only assume these scammers never provided them a refund either!

HUGE, HUGE, HUGE… SCAM-​SCAM-​SCAM. Before I even start this review I’m seriously asking others to take Ron R.‘s review with a grain of salt. Anybody with a brain would almost surely conclude he is in on the scam or friends with the scammer. If you were at this event you would definitely know his review is glowing comparative to what actually occurred at this event. To give Ron the benefit of the doubt maybe he is a person that doesn’t care about money and could care less if he is being scammed and not getting a thing for his money as promised. Since we know most people don’t operate in this manner I’m just going to let you decide on what to believe.
The truth of the matter can be seen in the second reviewer of this event Mr. Jose C. Everything he said is spot on and anyone that wasn’t buddies with the promoters or have some financial interest in this fraud and debauchery would come to the exact same sentiments or worse. With that out of the way now I’m going to write my review.
Lets talk portions. As Jose pointed out the samples were ant size. Honestly Jose I think you were being a bit generous with your comments. I would say they were more like microscopic. The great tacos that Ron describes so well were actually on something the size of Fritos scoops but even smaller if you can imagine that. They were literally half an inch long and maybe half an inch high. On top of that the stingy bastards only gave 2 after waiting in a 30 deep line. It was literally half a bite and I’m not exaggerating in the slightest. This particular vendor with the tacos was actually promoting hot sauce. These tacos were so small that in order to taste their sauce I had to poor it on my fingers because their stingy ass taco was so small you couldn’t even sauce it. This wasn’t the only vendor that had crap Mexican food. Thats right I said CRAP MEXICAN. Wait you may ask… I thought this was a «Latin Food Festival». Well these ignorant ass bastards must think that Latin encompasses only Mexican food because all the other Latin groups weren’t represented in the slightest. Back to the portion size. Lets take the Tequila, Wine, and beer vendor. I said beer vendor because there was only one and that was Stella. Hmmmm lets see… I want a cold beer like our good friend Ron spoke so highly of. Only difference is you had to wait in a 50 or 75 deep line (no lie) only to get a 5oz poor. Really??? Also the Tequila and wine vendors were doing the same thing. I tried 4 shots of Tequila and still didn’t have a shot. I know this must sound confusing, I’ll explain. The Tequila shots were being pored into a vessel slightly larger than a thimble and even then they just put enough to wet your mouth. There wasn’t even enough to swallow.seriously. Just enough to wet your mouth. How about the been dip punks. These were the losers that thought contributing refried beans and 2 chips was worth my 50 hard earned dollars. Literally about 2 tablespoons of beans that are cheap as hell with 2 tortilla chips. When asking to have some more chips it was like pulling teeth. They were treating us like we owed them money. Not treating us like the fact that we payed 50 $ for the event. I kid you not folks Costco does larger and better samples. You can ask anyone that was at this event… Its the damn truth. If we had of stayed and tried our best I couldn’t have consumed 20 $ worth of food. Thats because the food they were serving was not only minuscule, but was food with little or no value like chips, beans, soda. One vendor was actually promoting olive oil. You mean to tell me I spent 50 $ a ticket x4 to get some stupid ass olive oil. I feel so sorry for all the other people that really got raped and paid 100 $ or more for a ticket. My heart go’s out to you folks.
How about the glorious venue that you saw in the photos. All the awesome beach front grassy photos? Even right now you can go to Latin Food Festival and right on the front page it says Santa Monica Beach side. To see what a piece of crap fraud these people are google map the address. It was on an airport runway inside a hanger and outside in the sun on asphalt. These people are straight up frauds and I hope that one way or another they get what is coming to them. I think that this should be a class action lawsuit that involves all the defrauded vs. the con artist that made out like bandits.
To sum it up watch out for these losers and all their other events. I will spread the word to everyone I know to watch out for these frauds. Hopefully this review albeit a very negative one will help someone down the road from being ripped off by these clowns. I can’t wait to see more reviews like mine. They are coming trust me. Everyone we spoke to was fuming mad and people were leaving 20min into the event. Everyone was saying they were going to Unilocal them negatively that we spoke to. Hopefully their anger finds its way to Unilocal to shut these bozo’s down.

Worst food festival ever. Long lines to get in to the hanger area so you could get into another line for the bathrooms, rather the porta-​potties. Way oversold for the number of food vendors, as there were generally 20 minute lines for each vendor to get a scrap of food or 3 oz beer. Originally supposed to be at the beach, but moved to the back of the Santa Monica airport after we purchased the tickets.
Did any else get food poisoning?

The Latin food fest was a huge scam. There were about 10 – 15 food vendors serving ant size samples. All the samples were tacos and tostadas. They should have named this the TACO FESTIVAL!!! I bought my ticket from groupon which originally stated VIP, well when we got to the actual even they were trying to up sell the vip tickets for $ 100 more! According to them we paid for early admission and not VIP. Stella and the other beer company there, I forgot the name, came through giving away cups and free beers. I think I got about $ 30 dollars worth. :). Luckily the crowd I was with made this event fun, however, it was not worth what we payed. This had SCAM written all over it. Thank you groupon for failing once again.

A good festival!
Had lots of fun sampling all kinds of food and alcoholic beverages at the fest.
Booths lined the main court entrance of Hangar 8 at the Santa Monica airport. Tacos and tostadas were the popular plates at the fest — El Coraloense with their Halibut/​Mango Ceviche Tostadas were my favorite!
Compañía de Café was present with samples of sweets and Latin inspired drinks. Jarritos was there handing out full bottles of the popular soda in various flavors.
Cuba was represented by La Floridita and their samples of marquitas and Ropa Vieja (long Plantain chips topped with shredded beef — in a tomato/​onion stew.)
The longest line might have been at Stella Artois. Not only were they serving cold beer on a hot day — the refreshing Belgium beer was served up in a real glass Chalis that you could get refilled throughout the day
Inside the actual hangar was a VIP area filled with: Moët Chandon, a masseuse, tequila flights from Tequila Alquimia, cocktails from Tito Homemade Vodka, and oysters from The Jolly Oyster — which stole the show! Additional alcohol and food vendors lined the inside perimeter of the hangar as well.
Overall a good event! Food was good and drinks were plentiful.
This was the 4^th Annual Latin Food Fest — I would like to see additional vendors from different regions of Latin America (I.e. Central America & South America) not only Mexican vendors. I think this would make it a TRUER representation of not only Latin American food but Culture as well — as these go hand-​in-​hand…
#Delicioso #LatinFoodFest #SantaMonica