A new weekly tradition is taking root in downtown Santa Rosa. The Wanderlust Food Truck Festival opened Thursday at Old Courthouse Square, bringing 15 to 20 food trucks, live music, bounce castles and face painting to the plaza for what organizers say will become a recurring Thursday evening gathering from 5 to 9:30 p.m.
The inaugural lineup included a wide mix of cuisines, according to The Press Democrat, with vendors like World Famous Corndogs, Kona Ice, Costas Tacos, Stickee Eats serving Lao cuisine, Momo Man offering Himalayan and Indian food, and Tri Tip Trolley dishing out sandwiches and sliders. Trucks selling pizza, pancakes and lemonade rounded out the opening night spread, and the festival is also offering beer and wine from the team behind the Wednesday Night Market. A Facebook page was also mentioned ahead of the opening.
A New Thursday Gathering
The festival’s Thursday debut comes shortly after the Wednesday Night Market, a 37-year tradition that recently concluded after a 14-week summer run that drew an estimated 7,000 to 9,000 visitors per night. Wanderlust now offers another downtown gathering on a different night of the week.
Christine Busby, in an Aug. 28 email, said the new festival creates a place for people to meet friends, bring families, discover food and spend an evening together. The Sonoma County series is designed to give families, coworkers and visitors another reason to spend Thursday evenings downtown, and organizers describe it as an effort to bring Wanderlust’s community gathering model to Santa Rosa.
A Plaza Built for the Crowd
Old Courthouse Square itself has a long civic history that predates any food truck. The land was donated to Sonoma County in 1854 when Santa Rosa was named the county seat, and it served as the seat of local government for 82 years before the original courthouse was demolished in 1966, according to the City of Santa Rosa. The 1884 courthouse building was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake before the site underwent a reunification project completed in 2017, which removed a roadway that had bisected the park since 1967 and created the single public plaza — framed by granite steps from the historic 1908 courthouse — that now hosts weekly street events…