Urban Table Farmers’ Market

appears to be CLOSED — definitely weren’t there tonight — 7÷15÷2013 — only 1 mo after the last Unilocaler? no trucks, no people, no nothing just trains — I haven’t seen any update about this closing — and I looked right before we went, as my husband came home early from work and we thought this would be fun. an update would be nice.

Uh… no market. There were food trucks though. A handful of like 6 – 7 trucks and maybe one other booth. Too bad. I was looking to buy some local produce and walk around. The truck choices looked pretty good though. Guess the trucks are there every Monday afternoon/​evening.

Happily stumbled upon this little treat. Apparently the market + food trucks are in Downtown San Mateo on Mondays.
There are only a handful of trucks, but it’s great to see them in this foreign (to me) city anyway. Grab something before you head on the Caltrain home.
From their website:
DOWNTOWN SAN MATEO
Urban Market
San Mateo, California
Mondays 5 PM — 8:30 PM
April 1 — October 28, 2013
Downtown San Mateo Caltrain Station

It’s Food Truck season again at the San Mateo Caltrain Station. This time with
taking the reins from what Off The Grid started last year.
The format is pretty much similar to Off The Grid. 5 – 6 Trucks lined up in front of the station with a few tables and chairs. Though this year UrbanTable added a small Farmers’ Market to mesh with the trucks along with some live music entertainment.
Even the same trucks would show up from time to time along with a few new ones:
3-​Sum Eats
Bao and Bun
The Chairman
Curry Up Now
Dosa Republic
Hapa SF
Hongry Kong
Little Green Cyclo
Mama’s Empanadas
Manna JPT
Pacific Puffs
Pollo Frito
The Rib Whip
Southern Sandwich Co.
Nice variety of trucks!
Sadly, last Monday was their last event of the season but they’ll be back in April 2013. So far away!!!

thank goodness this is finally back! i find it interesting that there is such a backlash on the rotation of food trucks — am i the only one who has favorite trucks that i look to visit for delicious offerings? maybe i’m a creature by habitat, but when i know my truck is nearby, i make a beeline to them.
i think the concept of mixing trucks and farmer’s market is a concept that still needs some time to become familiar to the general public. it needs some tweaking or maybe collaboration with existing, established farmer’s markets. for example, i have a farmer’s market every sunday that also has a couple trucks for patrons to have a bite while buying groceries for the week.
overall, i am happy to have these guys here and even happier that surrounding brick & mortar restaurants are able to coexist!

Had a really good experience with the food trucks Monday August 13^th. I was there previously on the 6^th, but the spread that day was less impressive.
My friends and I had
— salmon/​mango sushi «burrito» (kinda a ½ or ¾ size burrito but really tasty)
— grilled cheese and tomato soup
— cheesesteak sandwich with italian sausage instead of beef
— strawberry sorbet from scream
My only complaint is I wish there were a few more tables/​chairs. We managed to scrounge up enough to sit together, but a few more would be nice.

The concept was conceived I’m sure, with the best of intentions.
The way the downtown San Mateo location (right by the train station) of Urban Table Farmer’s Market is setup, is basically this.
Off The Grid San Mateo (dead but reincarnated as a zombie) + one information table + one or two farmers market vendors = Urban Table Farmers Market San Mateo.
Basically mediocre overpriced food on wheels from 5 rotating vendors, and a very sad two farmer vendors, making a 1 to 2 stall farmers market. I wonder how much each farmer vendor pays for a table, and whether they make enough money from that one afternoon/​evening to justify the gas driving up there, to setting up the tables, to break even. How many pounds of nuts, or mini baskets of organic strawberries?
The problem is space. 5 gourmeh roach coaches essentially take up the span of the across the street from train station parking, with enough space inbetween and thus allowing customer lines to form for the more popular (re: extreme mediocre) offerings. After that, there isn’t that much more space for more farmers market vendors to come in. Maybe that’s why it looks like Off The Grid came back on the grid, but not in a Tron kind of way.
On any given Monday night since this has started, business has been very good. And while most locals seem to be enamored with the fact that these roach coaches have resurfaced since Off The Grid pulled out of San Mateo, the fact remains that the original concept flopped.
Why not call it RoachCoachFest Mondays.
A real a$$ A$N night market would have portable butane powered heating for cooking, wok stir frying, deep frying, BBQing, tandoorying, the whole 9 yards. I would have preferred charcoal grilling, but the carb footprint police would squawk (yet they’re fine with CO/​CO2 emissions from a truck). You’ve seen enough Bourdain night market porn on episodes like Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Malaysia/​Penang and the upcoming Layover Taipei to know what I’m talking about. Sadly real a$$ A$N night market setup already violates an insane amount of city/​health codes, but yet somehow roach coaches are ok because it’s not open air. At least Pasadena tried the 626 night market, which drew more people than expected, and the result was a nightmare.
There have been some pretty good farmers markets where vendors do set up shop in their booths/​tables/​tent/​canvas thingies, and really deliver the goods. Kind of like the one in Stonestown that did Belgian waffles, or the yang rou chuan/​lamb skewer.
I think something closer to that would be ideal. It just needs to be done where there’s more space, and less restrictions. I’d welcome something like this even if on a smaller scale… if only it wasn’t just food trux.

The first week only had food trucks. Unfortunately all ones that I’d tried before. THe second week only had a small stand. I hope this event keeps growing. The 2^nd week food truck selection was quite good and I got to try a few new things. Since off the grid is no longer doing things here it was nice of the city to step up and provide a social environment for eating again. 3.5 stars

I thought this was Off the Grid last Monday, but it turns out that the 2012 season of summer food trucks is being managed by Urban Table. Urban Table is the same group that does the Farmers market on Sundays at the Wells Fargo parking lot. Those farmer markets are small, but small is what you need in the location by the train depot, especially if you have food trucks as well. I love being able to get fresh produce and interesting food options from the trucks so having food trucks and a farmers market is a winning combination. The first week trucks were chairman bao, hiyaa truck and a few others… I hope the trucks rotate every week, and I certainly wouldn’t mind if Chairman Bao was there again! I can’t wait until next Monday to see what the trucks will be.
I heart summers in downtown San Mateo — we get the music festivals on Thursday nights, and these food trucks on Monday. How cool is that?!