The Bizerkeley Food Festival

This year's Berkeley was a lot or fun. Delicious food and the festival was so spacious with tons of samples like last year! Eclipse ice cream is a must-try! everything is vegan, which was a word didn't like 7 years ago bc the food wasn't great back then, but now it's amazing!! Entertainment the as great! Awesome music and very entertaining dancing performance from the kids! Can't wait till next year!

We had an opportunity to visit the Bizerkely Food Festival - all things VEGAN!Parking was off street, but it was a Sunday so parking was easy to find.Close to Downtown and UC Berkeley.Lots of food vendors with vegan options. I noticed that most of the items were fried. I tend to gravitate towards "shellfish" items because I have a food allergy. I would have preferred to see more creative fresh items on the menu.The one bright spot was we ran into an old friend who was helping out one of the vendors!

This is the first event I've ever gotten into through a Yelp invite that I've ever rated anything less than 5 stars. Sadly, The Bizerkeley Food Festival was disappointing and failed in all metrics of what was advertised and envisioned. When we first arrived at the festival grounds, we noticed the of the block where we were was simply blocked off by a few chairs and caution tape. And there was a steady stream of people in front of us simply moving the chairs to the side and walking in, or hopping over the barriers unimpeded. While there were several staff on the other side, they all looked like young, high school volunteers. And none of them made any effort to stop the flow of party crashers who continuously entered in without paying. Since there was no signage directing us to where the actual entrance was, I flagged down one of the bored volunteers who was simply playing with her phone the whole time and inquired where I could enter the grounds. And was told I needed to walk all the way around to the OTHER side of the park to get to the entrance. Why they didn't simply make two entrances for a festival that spanned the entire perimeter of a park is beyond me.When we finally arrived at the actual entrance, we noticed there was no ropes, lines, barriers or staff maintaining any sense of crowd control. Instead, people were freely walking into the festival without anyone checking on their tickets. If I did not get free tickets to this event, I would have been extremely disappointed that I had paid only to have a large number of participants choose not to do so. Additionally, the proper tent to check-in at was completely unclear. I approached one of the closest tents to the entrance, only to be told that Yelp people have to go do a different tent. Once again, proper signage and staff directing traffic would have gone a long way here.The event promised 99+ vendors, but I was hard pressed to count more than 30 at best at the entire festival. With only less than a handful actually offering samples, and very few food vendors, most with EXTREMELY long and slow-moving lines. Additionally, the adoptable petting zone that was advertised must have been extremely well hidden, because it never materialized for us when we visited. Overall, the event was poorly organized and coordinated. Felt extremely underwhelming, and failed to live up to the hype and potential. This was our first year experiencing this festival. And based upon our experience, will most likely be our last.

Thank you Hailey P, the Yelp team, and Bizerkeley Food Festival Team for such a great and interesting event.Quality/Quantity - Like many of the reviews, I did NOT know that this was a Vegan event. I was thinking of a "night market" type event.The good news is that I should be eating healthier.And even better news, the food actually tasted good. :)They even had a decent amount of food for $5 each. Well, we only looked at booths with that price point.Atmosphere - Good size location. Could have done a much better job with security, but overall good.Clean outhouses (I did not use) and better yet, functioning hand washing stations that I did use. Thank you.Plenty of booths/tents. I only checked out the ones with extremely long lines.The music and entertainment was also better than expected. Loved the original vegan, plant base songs, raps, etc. So creative.Service - Good. Price - Depends on what you buy, eat, and drink.Entrance tickets range from $5 to $14 (cashless).Owner Comments - Congrats to Erika Hazel and the Bizerkeley Food Festival Team.

This has the potential to be something great however the lines made it more difficult to enjoy. I saw lots of lines spanning the blocks waiting to get in both entrances. There was a lot of congestion in certain parts of the festival because of the lines waiting for food and I feel like the space was not utilized well. It was also hard to see what food each vendor was selling since the menus weren't super visible unless you were at the frontAs for samples there were a handful of vendors handing out samples and I enjoyed them all, especially the bon bon from eclipse. I ate some yogurt, popcorn, bread with chili oil, plant based milks, and kombucha. Some further planning by the event planners could make this a great event - including spacing out the vendors a bit, allowing vendors to have more staff so the lines can move faster (apparently only allows 3 per booth). I ended up not purchasing any food because the food lines were so long. I did buy stuff from the merch vendors and that was sprinkled throughout.

Beautiful day for the festival. They had a good variety of tents offering food, drinks, and local made goods. Good turnout of people but not so crowded that you couldn't walk freely. My favorite item was the Sparkling Tropical from @coffeecompanion. It was like a lemonade with a half shot of espresso. Very refreshing. The sparking water added was a nice touch and the espresso was like when you are eating espresso beans. Not over powering to the drink but the taste was definitely there. I did lunch at @veganchulaeats. I would say they had the longest line. Everyone wanted to try them. They ran out of Mac & Cheese and the hot honey chicken before we made it to the tent. I ovreheard one woman saying she had it and thought it was amazing so we were disappointed I had the plain chicken tenders with chula sauce. The texture was good for "not chicken" and the batter was very crispy and tasty so if you like a very crispy tenders, this is for you. The chula sauce tasted a lot like Zaxbey's sauce. Ok & not spicy. We had many good samples while wandering around and enjoyed the music. There was a dance group performing right before we left and I like how at the end they invited people up to dance with them. The kids in the crowd loved that as did many of the adults. We spent about 4 hours there and the weather was beautiful so that made for a very pleasant day.

Im not a big vegan guy. But the Food Festival was nice. Beautiful day for it. A lot of great vendors with different options. From Indian Simmer Sauces to Tamales.I ended up with a pineapple whip, indian simmer sauces, spices, chili oil and butter mochi. Thank you Yelp for the tickets.

I'm bummed that I have to rank my first (and possibly last) Bizerkeley Food Festival fairly low. As a vegan myself and someone that works in project management, I was fairly critical of the entire setup and did not feel we really got our money or times worth.Let's talk pricing. Tickets were $5 online or at the door apparently. I bought a set online thinking there would be a discount. When we get to lining up, they didn't scan the QR code nor really checked... so I could've easily just walked in without paying.I also read here that some people got in for free - either through Yelp or just snuck in, so that leaves a sour taste for someone that actually had to pay.The festival is not clearly marketed as vegan and whether it should or not is not necessarily the issue. However, calling it a 'food festival' when the majority of vendors were NOT food stalls was quite a shock if I'm being completely honest.Due to the lack of food vendors, everyone had a long line while other vegan-friendly independent artists and business owners didn't get the same love and attention, and I think a product of that IS from the unclear marketing. Even for the samples that we got - many were awesome and I'm glad I got to try a few new items, but they were far and few between. The event encouraged you to "bring tupperware" insinuating that there'd be plenty of samples you can barely eat them all, and that was far from the case.My friends and I walked through within 45 minutes and left to go find food elsewhere in Berkeley. That's probably the best part which is the location - close to many restaurants including other vegan businesses which we frequented (and there were a TON of people with wristbands dining there. I wonder why...)For an alternative, the VegFest in Santa Cruz was MUCH better. Same price but you get more vendors, more samples, all indoors, more swag, and still opportunities to purchase additional meals.

This is one of the worse food festivals I've been to. Completely not as advertised! Didn't see a petting zoo and it did not have 99+ vendors. Only one "alcohol" vendor sampling seltzer and kombucha, which they were also available for purchase ($5 for a can of seltzer and $10 for can of kombucha) Finished walking the block in 1 hour walking in extremely slow paced. Majority of the food options were Vegan but still felt like it lacked variety and number of vendors. Lots of vegan desserts. Homeless people were roaming around in lines for samples while normal people have to pay for entrance. Overheard one of them say "move the metal barricade and just go in since we live here anyway."

Can I spend every Sunday celebrating this festival? I loved all of the vendors! @cocobreeze had Aunty grooving with Trinidadian food. Roti and doubles made my tummy happy. The spices were good but ask for pepper sauce on the side of you can handle it. There were lots of other vendors, including vegan leather, plants, jewelry, and more! I can't wait until the next event. Coco BreezeRoti: Dahl puri (ground split peas) sprinkled inside the roti. You thought I wouldn't notice, but I caught onto the special touch. The roti was stuffed with pumpkin, curry soy, and Channa (curry chick peas). It was hearty! Doubles:Two fried bara (bread) with kuchela (shredded spiced pickled fruit), shedded cucumber, and of course Channa.