Bacon Nation Food Festival

Worst… festival…ever.
It was a big grassy area with a few food trucks propped about. A few of the food trucks offered bacon on a burger for an extra charge. One food truck offered bacon brownies and another one offered two slices of bacon that were painted with chocolate on one side — for $ 6.00. We were so disappointed that we didn’t bother to buy a single item.
It was quiet, with a few people walking in a circle, visiting each food truck, and everyone was disappointed. I brought my 2 very small dogs and pushed a dog-​stroller to put them into, in case there were too many people for them to walk around. It was difficult to push the stroller around on the grass since there was no paved area.
It took us 10 minutes to walk around the festival & then spent the day in St. Augustine. Thank goodness for the activities in the beautiful city of St. Augustine, because this festival was a flop!

What do you call a Bacon Festival without bacon?
A gathering of food trucks.
Until the Jaguars draft completes, there is a huge chance that this 1^st annual Bacon Nation Food Festival will retain the exalted position of being my lowlight of 2014.
On the one hand I was very proud and happy to support this inaugural festival and wish them every success with next year’s event, but on the other hand this was a bit of a shambles.
After teasing everyone at work about the Bacon Festival in Chicago being almost worth hitchhiking to, someone sent around an email alerting everyone to the Bacon Festival in St. Augustine.
Instantly the office was a mass of hugging, cheering and dancing employees. A lottery win couldn’t have elicited a more joyful environment. The words Bacon and Festival are two of the most magical, powerful combinations in the English language.
Running on Sat 26^th and Sunday 27^th of April from 11:00am until 8:00pm, this 1^st annual Bacon Nation Food Festival promised a variety of bacon-​related foods, activities for the children, new culinary experiences and was a collection of some of the best vendors in Northeast and Central Florida, with «…more than 20 food trucks offering everything from dessert to authentic Hawaiian hotdogs.»
Everyone at work was going to be showing up at different time over the weekend, and as it so happened The Hublet and I managed to get the bulk of our weekend tasks completed early and rocked up to the Bacon Festival at about 11:30am on Saturday.
Instantly impressed by the size of the queue waiting to get in, although the ATM near the entrance lead me believe that not everyone read the ‘cash only’ stipulation on their website. Entry tickets were $ 4 per person, with children aged 13 and under getting in free.
Although I’m a bit of a grouch at having to pay to enter an event that gives you nothing in return for free and where I’ll have to pay for everything I choose to do, I was honestly happy to pump some money into the 1^st Bacon Festival in the hope that it would make them more inclined to return next year.
While queuing we were struck with how empty the field looked, with a limited row of food trucks to the right, children’s activities and games to the left and a small row of handicraft tents in the center.
The Hublet and I wandered around the field, wanting to preview our options before committing to a bacon-​related item… and were amazed at how few food trucks offered a standalone bacon item.
Sure, you could pay $ 1 – 2 extra to add bacon to an existing food truck item, but there were no food items that existed simply to celebrate the wonder of bacon. No bacon ice-​cream, no bacon beer, no bacon doughnuts or cupcakes, no bacon wrapped bacon stuffed with bacon (just some of the food fantasies that my colleagues and I had decided in the week leading up to the Festival that we were hoping to find).
One truck, I can’t remember the name… an orange truck… actually had the only queue of people in the entire field, and all because they were the sole truck who stepped up and made bacon their focal point with bacon brownies and so on. They had embraced the concept of the Bacon Festival and come armed with a menu that paid homage to bacon.
The only things we ended up paying for were a glass of homemade lemonade and $ 2 for 2x tiny strips of bacon dipped in chocolate, which were a disappointment as it seemed to be the wrong choice of chocolate as it didn’t work with the bacon at all
However, for me one of the worst things about the event was the taunting guy on the microphone caged up in the kiddy area at one of the ball games… his annoying, overly loud commentary was amazingly irritating and added to the overall dismal feeling of annoyance — a live band, inviting a local radio station to commentate or even some background music would have been a great alternative.
With a huge queue of people still lining up at the entrance to pay to enter, we were a bit sad at the letdown they were in for but I maintain that although the actual event was a huge disappointment, I’m very happy that I financially contributed and supported the first Bacon Festival in the area because I would love to see it return annually, albeit hugely improved.

This festival did not have bacon. I guess my expectation were to high. I understand its the first time and maybe next year

This was no Bacon Festival! There were lots of food trucks, which I love, but I drove down traffic and all for bacon! After we finally arrived, paid $ 10 dollars for parking and got into the Fair grounds, we find out that there was only one bacon food truck. We made our way to it, just to find it shut down at 3;00pm. I talked to the owner, who said he had had a busy day and because there were no other bacon vendors, he sold out by 1:30!
Anyway, all I can say is thank God it was a beautiful day and we were in St Augustine. We salvaged the day by playing tourists, visiting with family at the Marina and catching dinner at one of our favorite local spots.

I’m basically just echoing what Brian S. said because he is absolutely correct. On Saturday (the first day), they were out of bacon within just a few hours. Never got any the rest of the day. The festival opened again on Sunday with absolutely no bacon. Ridiculous. The was the First Annual Bacon Festival in St. Augustine and I truly hope they never do it again. If they do, I most definitely will not be in attendance!
We ended up going to Les Petit Pleasures
and having an amazing BLT. Then we just bummed around Saint George Street the rest of the day.

The bacon festival runs out of bacon after only a few hours on Saturday, and then they have the audacity to re-​open on Sunday… with no bacon. Unbelievable. I will never, ever come back to this.