Will Betsy and Jimmy Tarr, owners of the Hatfield-based Bistro Bus, ever get their money back?
Jimmy Tarr said he still hasn’t heard from Rob Craven, organizer of the never-realized inaugural Massachusetts Food Truck Festival, about getting back his $425 deposit. Tarr said he gave the money to Craven in March as an early commitment to the festival, which was scheduled to take place June 6 and 7 at the Three County Fairgrounds in Northampton.
Craven had advertised the event on Facebook as a charity event for the Northampton Survival Center that would feature food trucks, music, and fun. But he canceled the June event, rescheduled it for Aug. 15 and 16 — and then canceled again.
He’s also stopped returning calls and emails from the fairgrounds, the city, and vendors who put down deposits and saw their hopes of a busy summer festival dashed.
“I don’t want other people to get stuck in the situation we’ve been stuck in,” Tarr said. “Food truck owners don’t make a lot of money.”
It’s unclear how many food truck owners are out their deposit money or whether Craven has paid any of them back. Even before the most recent cancellation, he was tough to pin down.
Interested in covering the food truck festival, I started contacting Craven in May, sending numerous emails and calls. None was returned.
Bruce Shallcross, general manager of the Northampton fairgrounds, said Craven started selling tickets for the Northampton event in May. Tickets were advertised on the Massachusetts Food Truck Festival Facebook page; the page said the tickets would cost $5 each, with $1 of every sale going to the Northampton Survival Center.
The center has neither received its share of any ticket sales nor heard any word from Craven, said Amy Marsters, donor relations coordinator.
Shallcross said he tried reaching Craven for weeks for a deposit before removing the food truck festival from the fairgrounds’ schedule in July, which was too late to schedule another event.
“I hope somebody’s chasing him down,” Shallcross said. “I don’t think he’ll darken our door again.”
I reached out to a number of former business partners, vendors, and fairgrounds who worked with Craven, but none would comment for this story on the record. At least four sources said they feared retaliation from Craven.
Northampton Police Chief Jody Kasper said the department isn’t looking into Craven but will if someone files a report.
“If someone feels they’ve been a victim of a crime, come in and we’ll investigate it like any other crime,” said Kasper. “We have experience dealing with this type of thing.”
Craven organized the food truck festival in Northampton under the name of Connecticut Insider LLC, incorporated in October 2013. On Aug. 5 of this year he filed for a new limited liability corporation, Connecticut Events. He’s also listed as “managing member” in Connecticut state filings for Accelerated Marketing LLC.
Northampton Health Director Merridith O’Leary said she had to give food truck operators refunds on some temporary event permits obtained for the event’s original June dates. No trucks reapplied for the August date. “I didn’t even know it was rescheduled,” said O’Leary. “I didn’t hear back [from Craven], as much as we reached out.”
Tarr said Craven had sent him an email shortly before the June event date, saying he had to postpone the event because out-of-state food truck operators had failed to get required documentation that they could handle customers’ food allergies. In an interview, Tarr dismissed this as a legitimate excuse, saying food truck owners can quickly get them online.
“So, something smelled fishy to us,” Tarr said.
The planned festival in Northampton isn’t the only food truck event Craven has organized.
Last July Craven came under criticism from festival attendees and city officials for not making a plan to alleviate traffic caused by the food truck festival he put together at the fairgrounds in North Haven, Connecticut.
According to an article in the New Haven Register, the July 19 festival drew about 13,000 people, causing severe traffic congestion and a 40-minute wait to get into the event.
This summer, Craven put on the second annual Connecticut Food Truck Festival, which took place at the Four Town Fairgrounds in Somers, Connecticut, Aug. 22 -23. The event’s Facebook page, found under 2nd Annual Connecticut Food Truck Festival, has 5.4 thousand guests.
The fairgrounds’ secretary said Craven made his rental payment.
Though many commenters on the Facebook page did seem to have a good time, many were critical of the event for opposite reasons than those critical of last year’s event in North Haven. People posting on the page expressed pity for vendors, saying attendance was low due to a lack of advertising. Others said the food they had was delicious but they didn’t buy much because prices were high and portions were large.
In response to comments and questions last month, the page administrator posted that the 2014 event “lost quite a few thousand dollars but we were still able to raise thousands of dollars in non perishable goods and some money for North Haven Food Pantry.”
The pantry confirmed Craven made three separate donations totaling $635 between August and November 2014.•
Contact Amanda Drane at adrane@valleyadvocate.com.
