GREEN COVE SPRINGS – Food Truck Fridays in Spring Park of Green Cove Springs is back.

The popular gathering of people, delicious foods and entertainment is something that’s been missed by the food vendors and their patrons.

“We’ve had quite a run for food truck Fridays,” said Ed Gaw, Vice-Mayor of Green Cove Springs and one of the primary organizers. “This will be the fourth year, although our third year, we ran no events. Typically, we run the first event in March, and COVID hit a week before we were to run our first event in 2020.”

The customary time for Food Truck Fridays is March through November each year. With the absence of the event last year, there was great interest in its return.

“They’ve [vendors] been through a pretty tough year,” said Gaw. “Everybody was on pins and needles wondering whether we were going to have one in 2020, so every month the phone would ring and we’d have to tell them ‘Nope, conditions were not to where we could responsibly have a Food Truck Friday.’”

Once it was posted via social media the event was returning, Gaw said in about 11 minutes, everything was up and running and his phone was ringing off the hook.

One of the keys was ensuring public safety. Instead of all the trucks lining up bumper-to-bumper on Walnut Street, half will be there, and the other half will be on Spring Street to encourage social distancing. Masks also will be encouraged. In terms of safety, the event is a double-edged sword. While there’s a desire is for it to be successful and to provide an entertaining outdoor opportunity for residents, there is a concern that too many people will create a safety concern. Gaw says that the city will play it by ear.

“Somewhere around 25 [trucks] will be a maximum,” Gaw said. “The first event we had had 200 people…this whole thing has grown out of that.”

The even is important to Green Cove Springs. On any given weekend of fair weather, the park is generally full with people enjoying everything it has to offer.

“Food Truck Friday is a way to introduce that to a wider audience. You go to these events and you’ll find people from Palatka; you’ll find people from Orange Park,” Gaw said.

The event will start this Friday, March 12, and run on the second Friday of each month from 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.