The city is looking for the community to truck on down to City Hall to enjoy some entertainment and great local cuisine during the premier of Warwick Food Truck Nights this Thursday. 

The Warwick Tourism Department has extended an open invitation to the heart of Apponaug for a free event that will include music, surprises, beer, wine, and of course food trucks.

 “About a year and a half ago, Eric Weiner from Food Trucks In, who does these food truck events all over the state, we met at an event and had a conversation about the Rocky Point Movie Nights and other events,” said Mayor Scott Avedisian about the idea. “I said let’s also do one somewhere else and we discussed where and how to do it.” 

Inspired by regularly scheduled food truck nights at Roger Williams Park in Providence, the mayor and city looked for a way to duplicate that success locally.

 “They had a food truck event recently at Roger Williams Park, and I figured I would go and check out what was going on,” said Avedisian. “They had about 700 people there, they had music and people were having a wonderful time, all the food was fantastic and some even ran out of food it was so well attended.”

After discussions involving licensing and traffic planning, the city believes they’ve worked out a solution for a first run this Thursday from 4:30 until 8:00 p.m., and have promoted the event through advertisements and social media.

 “The response thus far has already been incredible, people are calling City Hall talking about it, asking what time it will open or where’s the best parking,” said Avedisian. “The police department came over and did a whole parking plan on how we can move people. This’ll be our trial where we’ll work out the kinks the first time.”

 Food trucks will be placed strategically around City Hall, and attendees are encouraged to sample from multiple vendors. Cash, credit, or debit cards will be accepted. Entertainment includes a performance by Nancy Paolino and the Black Tie Band.  

“Hopefully this trial will give us the impetus to move the event to other locations throughout the city,” added Avedisian. “I think we’d like to move them around, that helps us sell all the different neighborhoods in the city with all the great places and locations that we have. It’s good exposure.”

 To plan the evening, a complete list of participating food trucks may be found online at www.foodtrucksin.com/events/warwick-food-truck-nights. Local beers and wines will be available through Open Season Catering. More information about the event may be found at Warwick Tourism’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/warwickri/.

“You can see that people are responding well to this type of event, we’ve already seen that people have expressed an interest, so let’s figure out how we can make it even better going forward,” said Avedisian. “We had an incredibly beautiful summer, so come enjoy some good weather, some great food, see your friends and neighbors and have a great time.”