A record crowd turned out on Saturday for the third installment of Piedmont Food Fest, the multicultural festival that celebrates the diversity of the Bay Area through food, drink, music, and performances.
Organizers estimate that this year’s event attracted 2,300 attendees, a 20% jump from last year’s event — a strong turnout reflected in the large audience watching the performances as well as the flow of customers queuing up at the many food, beverage, dessert, and retail stations throughout the day.
Over 20 food trucks and stalls stretched from Magnolia Avenue to Highland Avenue, creating a boulevard of culinary delights including poke bowls, BBQ, paella, pork baos, fried chicken sandwiches, Singaporean chili crab sandwiches, curries, fresh pizzas, boba tea, and gourmet lemonades. The Beer & Wine Zone also featured beer, wine, and cider from Oakland United Beerworks, Alameda Island Brewery, Del Cielo Brewery, Altamont Beer Works, Dokkabier, Headlands Brewing, Maker Wines, Deer Hill Vineyards, Blindwood Cider, and Mount Diablo Cider Company.
Feathered friend from Amor do Samba 
The event that promised “something for everyone” lived up to the pledge as visitors were treated to a potpourri of entertainment, including aerialists from Beloved Little Circus, the Great Wall Youth Orchestra, Oakland Taiko, O Hina’aro Nui Tahitian Dance & Music, Hiiiwav Black Artist Incubator Showcase featuring Ayo Brame and August Lee Stevens, the South Asian Folk Opera Ensemble, and Amor do Samba. Local non-profit No Immigrants No Spice hosted an interactive trivia game and Chef James Yuen Leong Parry of buzzy popup Happy Crane shared lessons he learned from the world of fine dining.
Aerialist from Beloved Little Circus 
Hiiiwav Black Artist Incubator Showcase musician August Lee Stevens. 
Hiiiwav Black Artist Incubator Showcase saxophonist Ayo Brame. 
South Asian Folk Opera Ensemble
Despite their best efforts to stock the ever-popular KidZone, organizers exhausted their treasure trove of prizes, sno-cones, and cultural crafts as over 500 young festival-goers tried out different carnival games, sno-cone flavors, and butterfly crafts constructed out of colorful rice.
After a hiatus last year, the Community Circle returned to Food Fest, where visitors could learn more about local non-profits and community organizations such as Oakland Roots, Soccer Without Borders, Oakland Promise, No Immigrants No Spice, Piedmont Language School, Piedmont Asian American Club, League of Women Voters, PUSD Climate Literacy Resolution, Camp Augusta, Linda Beach Cooperative Playschool, Piedmont Play School, Immedium Books, Hiiiwav Black Artist Incubator, Linda Beach, and Shared Cultures.
Oakland Taiko 
The Great Wall Youth Orchestra 
O Hina’aro Nui Tahitian Dance & Music
The Piedmont Food Fest team would like to thank the hundreds of volunteers, supporters, vendors, and sponsors whose myriad contributions helped make this event possible. Special acknowledgements are in order for the generous financial support from local sponsors, led by the COMPASS team of Stacey Isaacs, Anna Bahnson, Sarah Abel & Julie Gardner, as well as Piedmont Grocery, Body Fit Training, HDR Remodeling, Xantrion, EVOQUE Home Studio by Erika Vexler,, Alameda Pediatric Dentistry & Orthodontics, Burke, and Williams, & Sorensen LLP, Bernard Hale Optometry, PAAC, Arthur Mac’s, Mulberry’s Market, Piedmont Post, Piedmont Exedra, and Pizzeria Violetta.
To view photos and videos from this year’s event as well as get involved in future planning opportunities, please visit www.piedmontfoodfest.org and follow the event at Instagram@piedmontfoodfest.
Photos courtesy of Meghan Bennett, Michelle Luo, and Christian Peacock