Small Businesses Spotlighted at Weekend Food Festival

 By Sally Deering

 Wait till you see the food vendors lined up for this yearâ€s Jersey City Project Eats festival happening Saturday and Sunday, June 24 & 25 at City Hall Plaza. Yummy dishes for every palate – from vegan to carnivore – are guaranteed to tempt and deliver a vast array of noshables for festival-goers.

The weekend long JC Project Eats is sponsored by the City of Jersey City and the Office of Mayor Steven M. Fulop and itâ€s the fifth year that the annual event will turn Jersey City Hallâ€s sidewalk square out front into one a gastronomic extravaganza.

The JC Project is a Jersey-City not-for-profit run by volunteers like Kristen Scalia, owner of Kanibal & Co, a small apparel and home goods shop on Montgomery Street. Scalia is a member of the board which raises money for small businesses by putting on summer and winter outdoor events. The non-profit organization formed when Scalia and other downtown Jersey City business owners lost income when Hurricane Sandy flooded their stores and ruined thousands of dollars of inventory.

“We had four feet of water and lost all of our inventory,” Scalia says. “Our insurance company said it was a a flood surge, and we were denied our claim.”

Scalia says she was lucky because her friends raised money for her to re-open her store.

“Otherwise I would not be where I am now,” Scalia says. “At that point I started talking to other small business owners. Unfortunate circumstances like fire and flood, thereâ€s no way to make money to help with improvements. We thought wouldnâ€t it be nice to have some kind of resource in town that was able to leverage businesses where they could generate income for improvements.”

Just BeClaws†JB FriesThatâ€s how the JC Project started and the food festival came about. Since then, it has become so popular vendors apply for a limited amount of available slots, but not everyone gets chosen.

“Itâ€s invite only,” Scalia says.

Vendors this year are the Big Straw, Waffle It & Co, Outer Limits Hot Sauce, Bang Cookies, Koro Koro, Milk Sugar Love, Bro-Ritos Food Truck, Ahh la cart, Bread & Spoon, Just Beclaws, Baonanas, House of Gains, Salt and Seed, The Cow and The Curd, Bucket & Bay Craft Gelato, Prato Bakery, Brooklyn Oyster Party, Grandma Downtown, Oh Honey, SunnyRaeâ€s Kitchen, Angry Archieâ€s, Modcup Coffee Co, Dark Side of the Moo, Suwanna, Tidal Poke Co, Talde, Gusti Di Sicilia, Eemaâ€s Cuisine, Lizzmonade, Incrediballs, Gia Gelato & Café, Frankie, Hoboken Farms, Pig & Prince Restaurant, Louie’s BBQ Pit, Ace’s Wings, The Guac Spot, Moffle Bar and Hamilton Pork

Eemaâ€s Cuisine will serve Hawaiian

dishes like Musubis at JC Project Eats

“I think as Jersey City grows and continues to develop, its important to offer our visitors and residents options that highlight all the talent we have here in our community,” Scalia says. “When you love where you work and you love where you live you want to create additional opportunity for the people around to thrive.”

Project Market is the JC Projectâ€s holiday marketplace held the first weekend in December and this year will be the organizationâ€s 6^th year. The marketplace offers shoppers an extragavanza of gifts and home goods made locally and regionally.

The Cow and the Curdâ€s

Wisconsin Cheese Curds

“For our food event, we want to keep it food vendors, and for our market in the winter, we like to have a select amount of vendors in jewelry, natural textiles, bath & body,” Scalia says. “We look holistically how these events will feel as a shopper.”

At the weekend food festival, the JC Project will get visitors in the dancing mood with a DJ and throughout the day some surprises.

“We partnered with Jersey Girls Food Tours, and weâ€re doing something brand new with them,” Scalia says. “Itâ€s kind of a secret. A certain amount of visitors will be invited to participate in a special food event.”

Belgian Liege Waffle by

Waffle It & Co

The JC Project offers small business owners one-on-one mentoring and entrepreneurial training, Scalia says. If a small business owner is interested, they can reach out and Scaliaâ€s team will direct them to the best person in town to meet. The volunteers donâ€t have an office, per se, but meet up sometimes at Andco on Montgomery Street that hosts seminars and workshops.

And since the food festival started five years†ago, several businesses were launched at the festival like Eemaâ€s, which serves authentic Hawaiian food.

A big supporter of the JC Project is Mayor Fulop, Scalia says.

“Mayor Fulop has been to all our events,” Scalia says. “Weâ€ve always been very grateful to him for keeping small businesses alive here in Jersey City. He makes himself accessible. As a small business person, I think thatâ€s amazing.”

If you go

Sat & Sun, June 24 & 25, 11 am-7 pm

JC Project Eats

City Hall Plaza

280 Grove St, JC 

www.thejerseycityproject.com

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 Foodies, get out your napkins! A motorcade of Food Trucks are heading to Exchange Place in Downtown Jersey City  and theyâ€re hauling meatballs, crab cakes, lobster rolls, deep-fried hot dogs, cheesecake, cupcakes and so much more. Itâ€s a foodie feast on wheels

Circling the area known as Owen J. Grundy Pier, the food trucks will line up on Sat, Aug 6 from 12 noon to 7 pm for the Rotary Club of Jersey Cityâ€s first Food Truck and Music Festival.

Food trucks and live bands are just part of the extravaganza. There will be crafts, refreshments, activities for the kids and community partners sharing what they do for the local community.

“Itâ€s our way to connect with as many community members as possible, and to get more people involved to do community service in Jersey City,” says Jersey City Rotary Club President-Elect Jennifer Aitken,, who works at New Jersey City University as Director of Specialized Services. “We want to raise awareness about Rotary and what Rotary does. As Jersey City continues to grow. We want to help those who need help.”

The Rotary Club is an international service organization that exists in over 200 countries with 33,000 clubs, and 1.2 million members. Funding humanitarian projects is the Rotary Clubâ€s mission, from local service projects to global initiatives.

 ‘For the last two years, we did a warm coat project and provided coats, hats, gloves and scarves to local families in need,” Aitken says. “We partner with a food pantry, too. On a global level, we did a solar lamp project for a community in Cameroon. We are also working on a distance learning program with a club in India to enable students to have access to faculty and technology.”

Food trucks and vendors that will be serving their delicious treats are Jersey Johnny’s, House of Cupcakes, Incrediballs, El Lechon de Negron, Milk Sugar Love, Empanada Lady, The Cow and Curd, Bro-Ritos, Callahan’s Hot Dogs, Gut Busters, Zinna’s Eats, Maddalena’s Cheesecake, Luigi’s Ice Cream, The Angry Crab, Fork in the Road, The Green Radish, Bearded Pigs BBQ, Borinquen Flavor, Aroy-D The Thai Elephant, Kona Ice of East Essex, My Hola Paella, POPSIE’s, No Pão, Mannino’s Cannoli Express, Jimmy Dawn’s, Madame Pearl’s Liege Waffles, Eat My Balls Food Truck, Mobile Mardi Gras, Ahh! La Cart, Only 1 Place and Mexi-Flip Taco Truck. (Pictured: Maddalenaâ€s)
Emcee for the day will be  Freddie Robinson, Jr.; with sounds by DJ Flyy Grl. Bands include Univ. Charter High School band, Drum & a Tantrum, Jake Tavill, Penniless Loafers, The Intensity, ProSteel, Band of Brothers, Mission Beyond Music, Kool Katz Band, Uprise Shadow, Grove Acoustics, Devyl Nellys Band, Li’Nards Many Moods, and Angel Ram.

Sponsors are CarePoint Health, Comcast, BCB Community Bank, Silverman, Century 21, Dante Alighieri Society of Jersey City, Leemark Electric, Morlees Footwear and Apparel, Brightside Tavern, Iron Monkey, PJ Ryan’s, Hudson RehabSpa, Jersey City Medical Center, and Tropicana.

Community partners for the day-long Food Truck & Music Festival are the  Garden State Episcopal Community Development Corporation; Golden Door Intâ€l Film Festival, Liberty Humane Society, York Street Project, and Art House Productions.

“Everyone recognizes the opportunity to serve Rotary for what it truly is: not a small opportunity, but a great one; an opportunity of a lifetime to change the world for the better, forever through Rotaryâ€s service to humanity,”  says Rotary International 2016-2017 President-elect John F. Germ.

 If you go

Sat, Aug. 6, Noon-7 pm

Owen J. Grundy Pier at Exchange Place

Jersey City

www.jerseycityrotary.org

.

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 The 6th Annual Hamilton Park BBQ Festival, presented by SILVERMAN  will be held on Saturday, September 26, 2015, noon to 8 pm, Hamilton Square, 232 Pavonia Avenue, on the east side of Hamilton Park.

The BBQ Festival is a fun, end of summer neighborhood event. Proceeds of the Hamilton Park BBQ Festival go to the Hamilton Park Conservancy (501(c)(3)) dedicated to assisting the city in the maintenance and improvement of the historic Hamilton Park.

GPâ€s Restaurant, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Jersey City Wingery, Pennsylvaniaâ€s Jimmyâ€s BBQ, Delaney Barbecue of Brooklyn, Benâ€s BBQ & Catering of Newark, Ahriâ€s Kitchen, will be serving up BBQ and BBQ related sides. Hamilton Inn is tending-bar serving beer from New Jersey Beer Co. and specialty cocktails.

Pick a Bon Bon, Lizzmonade, and Milk Sugar Love will feed your sweet tooth, quench your thirst, and dazzle your taste buds.

Activities include a mechanical bull, bouncy castle and face-painting. Kids are welcome!

Not Yo Mama’s Craft Fair will have fantastic craft and art vendors in Hamilton Park.

Famous Dancing Tony is coordinating live music all day. Bands slated to perform include The New City Kids, Gully Hubbards, Bluebirds of Paradise, Crowbar Hotel, Jeremy Wallace Trio, Dan Oâ€Dea & Eagle Ridge, Scott Wolfson & the Other Heroes, Zydeco Revelators, and The Jersey Rollers.

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