MSVW to host unique food/artistic event

VW independent/submitted information

Four wheels and a driver’s seat, but these are not average box trucks. In fact, Dan Campbell, owner of Affine Food Truck and president of the Fort Wayne Food Truck Association, shares that the recent popularity of the food truck is largely because their style and quality of food is most similar to that found in a fine dining restaurant.

Instead of indoor chairs and tables, patrons wait in line and are served outdoors from artistically painted trucks. Five of these artful trucks and their talented chefs will visit Van Wert this Saturday, July 11, as part of a new summer event, Eats on the Street & Art from the Fort.

Main Street Van Wert is partnering with Wassenberg Art Center to present this summer event from 2-11 p.m. Saturday.

The day will combine gourmet outdoor dining, an exhibit opening inside the art center gallery, live music indoors and out and buskers and street performers entertaining all afternoon.

Art from the Fort will feature the work of five prominent artists from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Gregg Coffey, Terry Ratliff, Joel Fremion, Gary Travis and Mindy Pennycoff will exhibit paintings and sculpture in a variety of styles, as well as fantastic fiber collage inside the Wassenberg Art Center gallery. Many of the pieces showcased in this exhibit will be for sale. The opening reception for this exhibit will begin at 2 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Beginning at 4 p.m., five gourmet food trucks will serve delicious and unique eats on the street in the center of Central Avenue. Menu items range from Mexican cuisine, brick oven pizza, Cajun entrees, Cuban Sol, and refreshing desserts. Stroll across the Town Creek footbridge between Central Avenue and Wassenberg Art Center’s newly landscaped grounds, enjoying music inside and out.

Fort Wayne’s Dan Dickerson and the Harp Condition will be performing inside the art center while Van Wert’s own DJ, Real Human Robot, will keep a beat outside.

The evening show will be a performance by The One-eyed Show from St. Marys rocking out back. An expansive beer and wine garden will serve attendees alongside various street performers roaming the Wassenberg grounds throughout the evening.
Perhaps the most fun during this July event will be watching and participating in Van Wert’s First Town Creek Duck Derpy (yes, it’s misspelled on purpose). A spectacle of 1,000 plastic rubber ducks will be dropped into Town Creek, racing for the title of Champion Duck. Cash prizes will be awarded to the owners of the first three ducks to cross the finish line, with a grand prize of $1,000. Additional cash awards and great door prizes will be given away to second- and third-place ducks and other qualifying ducks.

Van Wert High School’s Robotics Team will have its student-created robot participating during the event, which will launch the “pacesetter” duck to begin the race. Ducks are currently being sold by board members of both Main Street Van Wert and Wassenberg Art Center, now through the event date, and again on the event day. Duck “adoption” is $5 per duck or $25 for a “quack-pack” of six ducks. Proceeds from the Town Creek Duck Derpy fundraiser will benefit the Van Wert Robotics Team, Wassenberg Art Center and Main Street Van Wert.