12 Days of Elk Grove Mayor Gary Davis; Day 4 - Davis Establishes Elk Grove as Hip, Cool Food Truck Destination

December 11, 2016 |

In three days from today, Elk Grove Mayor Gary Davis will leave office. In honor of his last 12 days in office, we will take a look back at some of the most memorable aspects of Davis' tenure. 

In three days from today, Elk Grove Mayor Gary Davis will leave office. In honor of his last 12 days in office, we will take a look back at some of the most memorable aspects of Davis' tenure. 

Although outgoing Elk Grove Mayor Gary Davis has a thin record of notable accomplishments during his tenure, there are two regular events he can point to with pride. As discussed last Sunday, the Mayor's founding of the annual Running of the Elk Grove Half Marathon has become a signature event for the City.

The other lasting accomplishment Davis has left for Elk Grove residents, and their appetites were the establishment of various food truck events regularly held around the City. The event that Davis can take direct credit for is the monthly Food Truck Mania event held in Old Town Elk Grove.

The event, which was initially organized by Davis and his cadre of volunteers as a political event, is now hosted by SactoMoFo, who organizes regularly scheduled food truck gatherings throughout the region. Additionally, the Cosumnes Community Services District has also got in on the act with their monthly food truck gathering at Morse Park between March and October.

Speaking of Morse Park, this is a site that can be traced to the genesis of Davis' food truck involvement. Readers may recall that for several years from the time he was elected Davis held an annual community picnic. 

Those events were usually held after Labor Day when most kids were back in school and recreational soccer leagues in full swing. By 2011, through the help of generous business sponsors like Walmart, the events became quite popular, particularly after soccer games, with Davis providing meals of hot dogs, hamburgers, chips and soft drinks to hundreds, maybe thousands of kids and their parents.  

In 2012, rechristened as the annual Elk Fest, things changed. In previous years the picnic had provided hamburgers and hot dogs well into mid-afternoon. 

However, this year when people arrived around the scheduled serving time of noon, they found nothing. What few hot dogs and hamburgers were there, if any, vanished quickly.

There were scores of parents, as well as many grandparents, with children clad in soccer uniforms looking for their free post-game meal. Alas, nothing was to be had.

Luckily, or maybe not for those parents and grandparents on a budget, steps away from the serving tents set up to distribute the free meals, were a  handful of food trucks conveniently situated to pick up the slack. Unfortunately, while food trucks are cheaper to operate than a traditional restaurant, their prices are often higher, much higher, for what most parents are willing to spend on a six or seven-year-old child.

We will never know for sure if Davis wanted to promote his hipness so desperately by establishing Elk Grove on the then scorching-hot food truck scene that the truck operators demanded that no free food be served and he acquiesced. The fact remains Davis invited people to a free community picnic, and instead of getting a hot dog or hamburger, they got stuck with a $50 food truck bill.

Some deal.