St Neots Street Food Festival: Celebrating food excellence in Cambridgeshire’s largest town

May 21, 2021

Sunday 23 May 2021, 12.00-8.00pm
Market Square, St Neots

St Neots inaugural Street Food Festival has been organised collaboratively by Bohemia St Neots, St Neots Town Council and Shifties. This first event of 2021 aims to bring the community together to enjoy quality food and drink in a safe, open air environment in the heart of St Neots. The hospitality industry has been especially affected by the Coronavirus pandemic due to the forced business closures during the lockdowns. The Street Food Festival has been organised to give local food focused businesses a boost after what has been an incredibly difficult trading year.

With the recent success of the Town Council’s Farm and Craft Market, growing from 6–26 stalls in the space of a year and regularly increasing town centre footfall by over 40 per cent, the Street Food Festival aims to bring another regular attraction to the marketplace.

Specialist traders from across St Neots and the wider area will be attending, providing an eclectic mix of delicious food and drink to excite the senses. Confirmed traders include:
– Bagel Box Freshly baked and filled bagels
– Churro Boyz
– Clucking Good Chicken Chicken wings & sides plus a vegan menu
– Confetti Cake Lab Popular local cake maker, also attends St Neots Farm & Craft Market
– I am Dumpling Dim sum specialists
– Kerief Catering Flavours from the world specialising in South African and Jamaican cuisine
– Mobi Pizza Authentic Italian wood fired pizza
– Shelley’s Bakes Specialist vegan cake maker, trades at St Neots Farm & Craft Market
– Shume Specialist craft beer and bottle emporium, based in St Neots
– Sweet Paradise Specialist sweet shop based in St Neots
– The Horsebox Gourmet coffee and toasted sandwiches, from the team behind Bohemia
– The Mini Bar Licensed cocktail bar
– Top Dog Gourmet British hot dogs

As well as the mouth-watering food and drink, visitors will enjoy incredible entertainment provided by Indie Ford, Nick Moyster and St Neots local radio station, Black Cat Radio. Plus, a chilli hot wings challenge will take place on the Black Cat Stage at 3.00pm.

Entrance is free to the public, although visitor numbers may be restricted to adhere to Covid safety measures if the Square becomes particularly busy.

The event organisers take the safety of visitors and traders very seriously and measures are in place to ensure the event is safe for all; these include a one-way pedestrian route around the marketplace, social distance queue markers, hand sanitising stations, onsite toilets, social distance queue markers and event stewards.

Proposed Schedule (subject to change)
12.00pm Street Food Market Opens
3.00-4.00pm Chilli Eating Competition
5.00-6.00pm Indie Ford Music
6.30-7.30pm Nick Moyster
8.00pm Last Orders
9.00pm Event Close

Sponsors
The Street Food Festival is being sponsored in kind by the three co-organisers, who recognise the need to support small businesses and give a boost to the hospitality sector and town centre at this crucial time. Several other local businesses have also offered support for the event.

Quotes from the Organisers:

Cllr Stephen Ferguson, Mayor of St Neots: “Having reclaimed Market Square from its recent role as a car park, our next job is to occupy it with fun cultural and commercial events that attract people into our beautiful town. St Neots is already establishing a reputation for being a “foodie town”, and our first Street Food Festival will further enhance that, and I’m certain will become a regular event on our calendar. Having seen some of the vendors, I’ve already started a pre-emptive diet because of all the calories I’m going to consume at this event.”

James Larman & Ashley Smith, Founders of Bohemia St Neots: “Here at Bohemia street food is in our blood and a project like this is something we’ve been thinking about for a long time. We are passionate about this town, its community and its future. We wanted to bring something to the town that everyone could enjoy and come together to celebrate our freedom.”

Alex Hughes, CEO & Founder of Shifties: “As a community of business owners we feel very privileged to be able to support an event like this; one that allows us to collaborate with local organisations, and not to mention celebrating the easing of lockdown after what has been a testing time for us all! Its great to see so many independent businesses popping up in this space.”

https://www.streetfoodfest.co.uk/