Palm Harbor Discontinues First Friday Food Truck Rally

Palm Harbor's era of First Friday Food Truck Rallies is over, despite attempts to one man's attempt to salvage the event.

Michael Blasco, founder and CEO of Tampa Bay Food Truck Rally, attempted to reconstruct the monthly event for downtown Palm Harbor last month when he volunteered to unofficially fill the shoes of the former Old Palm Harbor Main Street executive director, a point-person for the vendors.

But Friday, Sept. 27, in trying to work out a new site for the event, leaders at the Palm Harbor Community Services Agency, new management for the White Chapel, told Blasco the First Friday Food Truck Rally, which typically draws between 500 and 700 people to downtown Palm Harbor, was bumped for a wedding, Blasco said.

"I don't have a site is what it comes down to," Blasco said. 

For now the event's future appears uncertain.

"I do not know, unfortunately, the state of the event," Blasco said.

Old Palm Harbor Main Street, a Main Street program that sponsored popular festivals and downtown events including First Fridays, Palm Harbor's Parrot Head Party and the Citrus Festival, disbanded Aug. 1 when the CSA took over management of the White Chapel on Georgia Avenue.

The Palm Harbor Community Services Agency is a non-profit that manages the parks and libraries within unincorporated Palm Harbor.

Old Palm Harbor Main Street Executive Director Debbie Thomas, the woman who coordinated eight to 10 vendors for the monthly Friday event, is said to have been removed from her seat just days before the food truck rally scheduled for Aug. 2.

Vendors and participating First Friday businesses were left scratching their heads as to whether the event would continue, sources at the Sept. 6 food truck rally said. The confusion continued just days before the September event.

On Sept. 6, only food trucks were set up as usual in the parking lot outside the White Chapel.

Not one vendor was on site.