VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Tuesday, the dozens of food vendors feeding hungry mouths at 2023 Something in the Water joined one of the final meetings ahead of the big weekend to iron out the last logistical details for the music festival.
“It’s one thing to get accepted, but as the date gets closer the excitement builds. All we’re doing is staying up until 2 a.m. rolling lumpia," Ron Comia laughed, who co-owns the Filipino food truck Flippin' Hangry with Melanie Lundy.
Among the roughly 30 food vendors serving food and drinks at the festival grounds are several local operations in the Hampton Roads region including Chix on the Beach, Waterman's, and Desmond's Island Soul Grill, among others.
Tuesday, vendors told 13News Now about a joint meeting that went over critical details to make sure the weekend goes off without a hitch, including a "loading day" on Thursday, restocking and inventory procedures, exact locations for each vendor and more.
Expecting thousands of orders over the three-day window, vendors like Flippin' Hangry are trying to find a balance between how much they prep versus how much they anticipate serving.
"We were shooting 8-10 thousand lumpia to prep for this, and that might not be enough," Lundy said.
"We're just trying to work out the math so that we don’t sell out too quickly, how much chicken is that? 80 pounds for the afternoon? 160 pounds for the day?" Comia said.
The sight of the festival means a lot more for some vendors like Ericka Crowder. In 2020, her small two-person operation Cutta's Kitchen (run along with her mother) was slated to be a food vendor before the COVID-19 pandemic. After being a local vendor at the 2022 festival in Washington D.C., Crowder will this year serve the community she's from and lives in.
“This is where we’re from, everybody knows we’re going to be here, so I'm hoping for a lot of support from our normal customers," Crowder said.
The full list of vendors can be found by clicking here.