Food Truck Festival Coming to McKinley Park Saturday

A new food truck festival will take place on Milwaukee’s lakefront this weekend.

The event, called “Park’d! Pop-Up Pub & Grub”, is being hosted by Milwaukee County Parks at McKinley Park between Lagoon Drive and McKinley Marina.

The event will run from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and feature a number of local food trucks and a new parks department beer truck. The department created “Park Pub,” a 1960s-era milk truck reconfigured to dispense beer.

Marketing materials from the parks department show the rolling pub will be serving beer from Lakefront Brewery, Eagle Park Brewing Company, Molson Coors and White Claw.

Vendors will include Wisconsin Fried Cheese Curds, Immy’s African Cuisine and Heavenly Roasted Nuts.

The event was created by a budget amendment from Milwaukee County Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman.

“Tomorrow will be a beautiful day, and this event is a perfect opportunity to support our incredible parks system by enjoying some local food and the lakefront before cheering on the Bucks in game 5,” said Wasserman in a statement.

The parks department chose McKinley Park for the festival earlier in the year because of its ample green space allowing plenty of room to patronize the food trucks and practice social distancing.

While it was Wasserman’s amendment that got the ball rolling, James Tarantino, director of business services for Parks, said in March that the department had been looking into ways to use special uses to support food trucks.

More events are planned.

“This is just a warmup! Park’d has more lakefront events coming. We’ll return to the lakefront August 28-29,” says the event website.