LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Little Rock's iconic downtown block party, also known as the food truck festival, is getting a new name and home.
The namesake has stood for 13 years as the Main Street Food Truck Festival, but now the annual event will be known as the Downtown Food Truck Festival.
In addition to the name change, the festival is also getting a change of scenery this year. Instead of its usual place on Main Street, it will now be held on Capitol Avenue.
One of the reasons for the move is that organizers needed more room. The new festival site will sit right in front of the capitol and run from Woodlane Street down to Chester Street.
The Downtown Little Rock Partnership is hoping this rebrand will bring revitalization to the area since its success on Main Street made such a huge impact.
Gabe Holmstrom, Executive Director of Downtown Little Rock Partnership, credits this as a big part of the move.
"The first year of the festival they had 12 trucks out here, that festival has grown from the 3,000 people that showed up year one to the 30,000 to 50,000 people that we've seen in recent years,” Holmstrom said.
Main Street has flourished right alongside the festival over its more than 10-year stretch, so two lanes don't quite cut it anymore.
"When we started this event in 2011 there were no restaurants, there were no businesses along this stretch and it looks a lot different today,” Holmstrom explained. "One of the things we experienced along Main Street in 2023, was it got really crowded in certain areas, we had so many people on top of lines for the trucks, people were packed in."
Holmstrom said Capitol Avenue makes sense, as they hope this shift will open doors for the area to thrive like Main Street.
"It's more spread out,” Holmstrom said “There's a lot of opportunity on Capitol Avenue, and we want to showcase that and bring people out there to show them what might be possible. Take that same energy and put that over on Capitol Avenue."
He added that the annual festival will still bring the same energy with 90 food trucks, more than 100 vendors, and a slate of musicians set to perform.
“It is a sensory overload experience,” Holmstrom said. “There are great smells, music, food trucks, and people. It's going to be in a new setting, we're going to have the capitol in the background. It's going to be a great day.”
The Downtown Food Truck Festival is slated for September 22 from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.