Montreal Food Truck Festival Says It’s Calling Off Its Event Because of Restaurant Staffing Woes – MONTREALINABOX
Mega Montreal food truck festival First Fridays (Les Premiers Vendredis) has decided to nix the event it had planned for this weekend, citing staffing troubles among participating restaurants as its primary reason for doing so.
After a 2020 pandemic hiatus, organizers relaunched First Fridays this year in a new three-day format. Rather than being held on the first Friday of every month from May to October, as has been historically the case, the event was scheduled to take place on the first Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of September and October. Now, organizers say they’re cancelling the second weekend of festivities, slated for October 1, 2 and 3 at the Olympic Park’s Esplanade.
“Unfortunately, due to the labor shortage in the industry, our restaurateurs were unable to answer the call for the October event,” festival organizers posted to Facebook on September 27 (originally in French but translated here).
Reached for further comment yesterday evening, Gaëlle Cerf, festival board member, vice-president of the Quebec Food Truck Association, and one-time owner of defunct Saint-Henri taco restaurant Grumman ’78, tells Eater that only eight or nine restaurants of the anticipated 30 to 40 planned for October would have been able to…
Montreal Food Truck Festival Says It’s Calling Off Its Event Because of Restaurant Staffing Woes – MONTREALINABOX – Source