Manayunk Food Festival draws thousands

Michael Merlino prepared the meat of two whole pigs - each weighing 120 pounds - for the Manayunk StrEAT Food Festival on Sunday.

In four hours, it was all gone, sold from the window of the boxy red food truck La Porchetta that Merlino owns with his dad, Nick, and sister, Niva.

They usually sell their sausage-and-pepper rolls and broccoli rabe sandwiches to the university crowd at 34th and Market Streets. But on Sunday, they were among 50 trucks that fed tens of thousands of people packed along Main Street.

"It's a lot more meat and a lot more money," Merlino said as he packed up, the street still brimming with people.

At least half the vendors had sold out before the festival ended, with at least 40,000 people forming deep lines at each, said Jane Lipton, executive director of the Manayunk Development Corp., which organized the event.

The turnout, which shattered totals of previous years, was likely spurred by the long winter and first springlike weather of 2015, Lipton said.

But for Travis Knapp, 23, it was the food. A food marketing major at St. Joseph's University, he wanted to escape the food desert of City Avenue, sinking his teeth into various types of meatballs from the Mama's Meatballs food truck.

His next move was tracking down pizza-flavor ice cream from another vendor.

"I'm getting really tired of all the chains like Olive Garden and Five Guys," he said. "This is really different."

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This story has been corrected from an earlier version.