Bob Snow Developing Great American Food Truck and Music Festival at Festival Bay Mall

By Mark Baratelli

EXCLUSIVE

Bob Snow, developer of the original Church Street Station, is possibly developing "The Great American Food Truck and Music Festival." He and his assistant Mark Boyd, held a meeting with local food truck owners at Festival Bay Mall Wednesday January 2, 2012, to talk to local food truck owners about this food truck project his company, Snow & Associates, might be developing. The plans call for it to be permanently located on the site of the Festival Bay Mall on International Drive near Premium Outlets Mall. 

More than food trucks, the food truck space will house a large bar and seated dining area covered by a giant canopy. Live music will be featured nightly and a fresh fruit gazebo will sell everything from strawberries to frozen daiquiris. The current name for the space is "The Great American Food Truck and Music Festival."

Festival Bay Mall is considering a complete renovation using Snow & Associates as the developer. The interior of the mall would be transformed into a European-style marketplace bazaar with a ton of entertainment, dining, and shopping. The new name of the mall would be the Great American Exposition, or simply EXPO.

It has been estimated that annually 20 million tourists visit the north end of International Drive where Festival Bay is located and part of the allure of EXPO will be its food truck plaza.

In addition, EXPO will be home to America’s first permanently-located circus as well as a European-flavored amusement ride area called Grande Carnevale.


In an email sent to local truck owners, he described one part of his project as a "food truck bazaar" which will house 20 permanent food truck slots, each "hand-picked" from dozens of candidates around Florida.

Bob Snow's assistant Mark Boyd was present at the December Food Truck Bazaar I put on and passed out pamphlets to truck owners and myself describing a national food truck association he was starting. That was the last I heard about it. As I was told, there was no talk of this association at the meeting January 2nd. 

At the first meeting held in Orlando on Wednesday January 2, 2012, when questioned how trucks will be chosen, Snow indicated the the trucks chosen were already in the room. He also said trucks from across the country would be scouted. It was told to me by a source at the meeting that some truck owners at the meeting felt more meetings with other truck owners were a necessity for Snow, since about only 10 food truck owners were in attendance at this initial meeting.