For those of you who don’t know about Abbot Kinney First Fridays in Venice Beach, California, you will by the time you finish reading this. WARNING: The following experience will have you pumped and out in full effect come June and every month thereafter. Your friends will thank you, and you will be the most popular person in your crew(hopefully, but not guaranteed.)





First Friday’s is not just a gallery art walk anymore, it has exploded into much more than that. With the support of local Abbot Kinney businesses, like “The Brig,” bar and lounge, a Mobile food-court and pit-stop for foodies on the Westside looking for a place to tailgate and begin their LA weekend,has emerged at the intersection of Venice Blvd and Abbot Kinney in their parking lot and extending West towards the ocean.



First Friday’s is always on the first Friday of the month, so mark your calendars in advance. Setup happens around 4pm and these trucks get up and jumping between 6 and 8pm.



Last Friday I met with my crew at the Brig, in the parking lot as trucks were just taking their positions. My special guest foodies were, two of the members of the Ska/Reggae band Fishbone, Dre Gipson(keyboards,vocals) and John Steward(drums), as well as Jaime Sol Black from The Dirty Suits. In addition to being in Fishbone, Dre and John both have side projects that they play music in. Check out Hunter Green and The Back of the Hand All Stars. You may just happen to see them around LA and in the Venice area at gig in the near future. Lisa Robinson from Stone Orchard Photography provided her trusty lens and appetite for this venue. What is LA without your own personal Papparazi ?



We started early, with a couple of P-B-R’s inside the Brig before stuffing our faces with a vast array of street food from a few of our favorite trucks.





Both Dogtown Dogs and its dueling partner the Dim Sum Truck have become parking lot staples at this location. They meet every Sunday in the parking lot for lunch as well as every first Friday.



As the night went on, more trucks entered the lot and took their places. As we glanced over we noticed that our favorite old school ice cream truck, COOLhaus had pulled up.



In true kid fashion we started our meal with desert. We sampled everything from maple-bacon ice cream sandwiches, mint-chocolate chip to fois gras ice-cream. Believe it or not, this was my favorite one, both for its taste and ingenuity.



After snacking on some dim-sum delights and some hotdogs and cheesy tater-tots from Dogtown Dogs we all went our separate ways with smiles on our faces.









Artists can always appreciate some great street food because they are always on the road and they agree that gourmet doesn’t have to mean you have to sit down to dine. Some of the best treats we had were consumed standing up. So in the theme of supporting local street food vendors, support local Los Angeles Music and Silverback artist Fishbone as they get ready to tour the country. This just proves that good food, good drinks and good music bring people together in Unity. One Bite & One Love!

Special thanks to graphic artist Dino Mayorga for the special edition “Viva LA” trucker hat that he made during “Taking it to the Streets”