What is San Jose’s SubZERO Festival? I’ll let their website help explain:
Focused on emerging and present subcultures thriving in our region, SubZERO is a diy, artistically bent, hi/lo-techno mashup where street meets geek. Come downtown on June 3rd to San Jose’s SoFA District from 6pm ’til midnight for an inspired evening of arts & culture. In addition to the South FIRST FRIDAYS monthly art walk you’ll find outdoor stages of entertainment plus artists, performers & musicians celebrating the indie creative spirit!
We enjoyed the SubZERO Festival much more than we thought we would. The main reason is that we ended up staying a lot longer than originally planned.
There were basically three parts to this festival.
The first part was all about art. Alas, we didn’t spend nearly enough time appreciating this first part.
As wifey and I were focused on getting to the food truck gathering and beer festival, it was the toddler who noticed, and insisted that we take a much closer look at, these animals that were hanging around. And then a random dude walked by and informed us that most of these animals were, in fact, extinct. Very cool and poignant artwork courtesy of the San Jose Yarnbombers.
Oddly Even performing.
Great art on the outside of a building wall.
The toddler spotted this in the sky directly over us – a dragon spitting out smoke and flames.
Troy Joseph Curtis performing with other talented musicians.
Jhameel. Learned about him about a week ago thanks to the SubZERO website. Really like his music. You can go download his album right now for free. But please make a donation. Again, I don’t know him personally, but I like that he went to Cal (Go Bears!). Didn’t think we’d be staying late enough to watch him perform, so catching a couple of his songs with the toddler was awesome.
Now, the second part featuring food trucks, SJ Eats – A Moveable Feast, was a big reason why we attended SubZERO.
Bill’s Beer Steamed Hot Dogs.
The Wow – silogs.
Treatbot – karaoke ice cream.
Tikka Bytes – Indian.
MoBowl – rice bowls.
An the Go – garlic noodles.
An the Go’s An Family’s Garlic Noodles.
Cabana Dave’s – world cuisine.
Cabana Dave’s baby back ribs.
Cabana Dave’s sweet potato fries.
The toddler and me.
Time for ice cream.
Treatbot’s Ryan, the organizer of SJ Eats, with the toddler. I embarrassed myself even more than last time while talking with him.
Strawberry for the toddler. And mango for the toddler’s friend. I had a taste of the strawberry, and it was amazing.
Hard to believe that there wasn’t a food truck element at last year’s SubZERO. But then again, gourmet food trucks have only recently, it seems, come into their own in San Jose. THANK YOU, RYAN, for your vision and leadership with that!
The next post has my take on the third part of SubZERO – the Better Brew Tasting Beer Festival.
Always Grateful,
~Andy
