Attention dog and food lovers!
If you’re in the market for really good food in an atmosphere where you can enjoy it with your best canine friends, be sure to look into Yappy Hour 2019.
This is the 6th annual Yappy Hour summer and I’m somewhat chagrined to admit that my wife and I only attended our first Yappy Hour this month.
Yappy Hour is free to the public and their pets, and takes place monthly during the summer at various parks around SLC, sponsored by Salt Lake City Public Services, Salt Lake City Parks & Public Lands Division, 97.9 FM SLC, 103.1 The Wave, Klo 1430 AM SLC, Proper Brewing Co, Hugo Coffee Roasters, The Food Truck League, and Salt Lake County Animal Services.
It’s a chance for pet owners to bring their dogs to play with other dogs, complete with live music, great food truck cuisine, drinks, pet-oriented booths, and more. And, if you don’t have a dog you can rescue one by adopting at Yappy Hour.
Yappy Hour is superbly well-organized—kudos to the folks who run it.
There’s a large fenced-off area for dogs to run wild, equipped with wading pools, drinking water for the dogs, pet toys, and more.
The Food Truck League organizes the food trucks that appear at Yappy Hour and Proper Brewing Company is the event’s beer vendor (bring cash; they don’t take credit cards for beer).
We made it around to some, but not all, of the food trucks at Yappy Hour and we were impressed by the diversity and range of foods available.
Red Food Truck
For example, there’s Peruvian fare from the Red Food Truck with items such as Lomo Saltado, Asado de Puerco, Aji de Pollo Sandwich, and much more.
Get into the Cone Zone
I’ve seen pizza sold by the slice and by the whole pie at festivals and events like Yappy Hour, but never pizza in a cone! But that’s precisely what the Pizza Cone Zone is all about.
It’s pizza dough that’s rolled into a cone shape and then stuffed with cheeses, meats, and veggies. It’s a very cool and non-messy way to have your pizza and eat it too. One thing you discover at Yappy Hour is that dogs do not discriminate when it comes to culinary matters. They will surround you with tails wagging no matter which food truck your food came from. For Fido, food is food.
Have it the Melty way
Before we step away from cheesy things, I have to confess my love for the Melty Way food truck. As you might have guessed, Melty Way specializes in grilled cheese sandwiches and variations on grilled cheese sandwiches. The menu includes the following options: Reuben, Ham & Swiss, Short Rib, Turkey Bacon, Chicken Avocado, Italian, Artichoke & Tomato, Chicken Parmesan, and Jalapeño Popper sandwiches.
All of the Melty Way sandwiches incorporate cheese into the mix—and usually a variety of cheeses. My favorite is the most traditional: The Four Cheese Classic, which has a blend of sharp provolone, havarti, fontina, and sharp cheddar. It’s one of the finest grilled cheese sandwiches I’ve ever gotten my lips around. A cup of tomato on the side is the perfect accompaniment. Well, that and a cold brew from Proper Brewing Co.
The savory … the sweet: CREPES!
If you love crêpes like I do, you need to head over to Monsieur Crêpes during Yappy Hour. And if you’re a truly loving pet parent, you’ll grab a treat or two for your pups at one of the many pet-oriented vendors and services that attend Yappy Hour.
The crêpe choices at the Monsieur Crêpes food truck is a little more limited than those at the store on 900 East, but there’s still a lot to choose from—both savory and sweet crêpes made by Maxime—a French native crêpe maker.
Fácil Taqueria
My wife’s favorite food truck at the August Yappy Hour was Fácil Taqueria, described as a “farm-to-table concept food truck.”
These are not your standard street corner cart tacos. For example, Fácil Taqueria often offers tacos with fillings like Niman Ranch pork, beef short ribs, Mary’s Chicken tinga, and a Local Farm Taco that my wife really enjoyed. It’s vegan, vegetarian, and gluten free. The night we were at Yappy Hour it was corn tortillas with zucchini, peppers, onions, mushrooms, and huge scoops of homemade guacamole.
Yoshi’s Enso Grill
Another very popular food truck during Yappy Hour is Yoshi’s Enso Grill.
Yoshi’s offers hungry dog lovers (and anyone else who happens to be around) a varied menu of enticing rice bowls along with sides like potstickers and eggrolls. Yoshi’s also has vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free food options. You can’t go wrong with Yoshi’s Godzilla Sushi.
One discovery we made is that our dogs—Ricky and Beau—seemed to forget their names in the midst of a hundred or more fellow fun-loving canines. Like kids playing video games, they had an out of sight, out of mind attitude toward us. “Ricky, come!” Fuhgeddaboudit. They were having too much fun running with abandon through wading pools with their new found friends.
You won’t want to miss out on the final Yappy Hour for Summer 2019. Did I mention that Yappy Hour is FREE?
The next one will take place on September 12 from 5 to 8 pm at Fairmont Park.
Make sure to bring a shopping bag since the Downtown SLC Farmers Market Tuesday Harvest Market will be happening just outside of the Yappy Hour area.
We’ll see you there with our pups!
Culinary quote of the week:
This is what we do for our livelihood. This is how we raise our kids. This is how we pay the bills. — Landan Gollaher, owner of The Matterhorn French Toast Food Truck
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Originally trained as an anthropologist, Ted Scheffler is a seasoned food, wine & travel writer based in Utah. He loves cooking, skiing, and spends an inordinate amount of time tending to his ever-growing herd of guitars and amplifiers.
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