Nine food trucks, including some of these, will be at the rally Saturday.

USF St. Petersburg will host a food truck rally Saturday from 11 am. to 3 p.m. to celebrate the first week back at school.

The rally will be held in Parking Lot 2 at the corner of 2^nd Street and 6^th Ave. South next to the Science and Technology Building.

The event is open to the public and admission is free. Food prices vary depending on the food truck.

The rally is organized by Tasting Tampa Bayand will feature nine food trucks serving things like gourmet meatballs and burgers, cupcakes, cheesesteaks, barbecue and arepas. The Tavern will participate by serving beer and wine and allowing visitors to eat inside.

Tasting Tampa Bay is credited with sparking the food truck craze locally with the first food truck rally ever held in Tampa Bay in Sept. 2012.  Tasting Tampa Bay also organized the first USFSP food truck rally in May 2012, which was also the first food truck rally ever held in downtown St. Petersburg.

WFTS-TV Ch. 28 ABC Action News plans to do live shots from the rally early Saturday morning.

“I believe that food truck rallies are a great way to attract visitors to campus and to promote interaction between students and our community,” Norine Noonan, Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, reported to The Crow’s Nest, “and you get to eat some fantastic food.”

Saturday’s rally is expected to include these food trucks:

•  Fat Tortillas – Southwest Tex Mex
• Burger Culture – Variety of delicious burgers
• DoChos – “Best Cuban in the Bay” and pressed sandwiches
• Jimmy Meatball – Meatballs of all different varieties
• American Wiener – Themed hot dogs
• Unforgettable Cupcakes Truck – Maple Bacon, Cookies N Creamy, Chocolate peanut butter and more!
• Just Smokin BBQ – Pulled pork, turkey and homemade BBQ sauce
• Nico’s Arepa Grill – Arepas filled with homemade cheeses and a variety of meats
• The Cheesesteak Truck – Classic cheesesteak plus a few fun twists

http://www.usfsp.edu/blog/2013/01/10/food-truck-rally-to-celebrate-start-of-spring-semester/

As a ‘welcome back’ to students, the University of South Florida St. Petersburg is hosting a food truck rally on Jan. 12 at t 121 7th Avenue South.

The food truck rally is from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Entrace to the event is free.

According to Tampa Food Truck Rally, there is a wide variety of vendors that will be in attendance.

Vendors Scheduled to be at the St. Pete Food Truck Rally:

• Fat Tortillas Southwest Grill
• Burger Culture tampa
• Dochos Concession
• Jimmy Meatballs
• American Wiener
• Unforgettable Cupcakes, Co.
• Just Smokin BBQ
• The Cheesesteak Truck
• Nico’s Arepas Grill

In St. Pete, food trucks have been a contentious issue between vendors that say food trucks allow them to make a living and brick and mortar business owners who say food trucks don’t pay property taxes and hurt their business.

http://stpete.patch.com/articles/food-truck-rally-coming-to-st-pete

By Jonathan Petramala | BayNews9.com

St. Petersburg hosted its first food truck rally on Saturday.

PINELLAS COUNTY — It’s a food craze that’s finally beginning to make its way across the water.

St. Petersburg hosted its first food truck rally on Saturday.

A lot of people turned out to taste all the goodies.

“Just likes to experience different types of food on their pallets and from there share the experience with other people that they love,” said Greg Volmar.

Greg Volmar shared this first course of food trucks with his wife and sister-in-law to experience what they’d previously only seen on cable TV; a food truck rally.

“When you come here you can get just about any style of food that you really want,” said Michael Blasco, of Tasting Tampa.

Organizers say what makes these types of things popular is the accessibility to lots of types of food.

It’s been what many in the ‘food scene’ have craved ever since Tampa started holding their own food rally’s earlier this year.

“When you go to a restaurant like one day out of the week, you’re just limited to just one menu. But coming to something like this you have lots of different options,” said Volmar.

It was held in a field next to the Value Fair Market. Food rally’s like these will be rolling around the Bay area, because organizers don’t want it to get stale.

“We don’t want to do this every weekend in the same spot because it’s going to get tired, that’s not what we want,” said Blasco.

If you missed the event this weekend, a second food truck rally will be held at First Unity Church of St. Petersburg on December 17th.

It took a while for food trucks to be allowed in St. Petersburg because of confusion over whether or not those trucks violated city code.

Officials figured out that just a special permit is needed.

http://www.baynews9.com/article/news/2011/december/353308/First-food-truck-rally-in-St.-Pete