Browsing Tag

street food

Dining Out, Lifestyle

Finding Plant-Based Street Food in Summer

We spent the afternoon looking for plant-based street food at Open Streets Minneapolis Lake Street.

Looking east on Lake Street during Open Streets Minneapolis festival.

People often think you can’t find plant-based street food options at summer festivals.

Just last year I mentioned to a coworker that I was going to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. She asked why I’d even bother, since I wouldn’t eat anything there anyway. It got me thinking: Too often people just assume that events like these aren’t going to be fun for you if you’re not eating the food. For us that simply isn’t the case. We are there to enjoy the experience, surroundings, and people, not the food. To paraphrase Joel Fuhrman (who himself is paraphrasing multiple historic figures) we would rather eat to live than live to eat.

Thankfully, we are finding that over time there are more and more food options available for plant-based eaters at local and regional festivals. Although the selection can be limited, it’s heartening to see the improvements.

Take for example Minneapolis Open Streets on Lake Street this past Sunday. We went up and down the entire length of the festival at least twice and managed to find multiple vendors offering foods friendly to plant-based eaters. While it may not seem like much, it’s a big improvement over previous years.

Minneapolis Hydration Station

The City of Minneapolis sets up portable drinking fountains with bottle-filling attachments to keep thirsty revelers hydrated.

Plant-Based Street Food Highlights from Sunday

  • Free organic sweet corn courtesy of the Midtown Farmers Market.
  • Free fruit-infused water courtesy of the Minneapolis Health Department.
  • Multiple vendors selling fresh fruits, including mangoes, pineapple and watermelon.
  • Plain grilled corn with nothing added.
  • Fruit-based ice lollies from Frio Frio that are plant-based friendly.
Grabbing a quick mango is a great plant-based street food option in summer.

In Minnesota it’s not real street food until you put it on a stick!

Besides the plant-based food, there was live music, dancing, free bike tune-ups, art and artists working in real time, and just the excitement of being able to use a normally busy thoroughfare as a pedestrian zone. This is the only time I would ever consider riding my bike down Lake Street.

In addition to scoping out food at the festival, we also packed a snack just in case we weren’t able to find anything. Generally speaking this is a really good idea, because you just never know what to expect. We’re looking forward to the next Open Streets event to see what other plant-based offerings we might find.

What do you do to get through summer festival season and maintain your plant-based diet? Let us know in the comments!