Eats & Beats: VegFest Blowing Up in Denver
No “foodie” town is complete without a strong vegan scene, and Denver is burnishing its vegan and vegetarian credentials with the Spring 2025 VegFest Colorado, Sunday, June 8 at the Auraria Campus Tivoli Quad and Turhalle Building. Eighty-five vendors, including trucks and food stands from out-of-state will make this one of the biggest events in its 10+ years. (The Fall VegFest is on September 28.)
The producers of the event both work vegan food trucks themselves. Natalie Gilbert plies her Asian inspired fare from a big orange food truck labeled “Wong Way Veg.” Helen Williams’ specialty is flavorful ice cream delights sourced from coconut and other plants. Her Vespa cart has grown into a truck as colorful as her cones, “Best One Yet.” They stopped by KUVO’s Morning Set to chat with Abi and Steve on this week's edition of "Eats & Beats."
Excerpt from the Interview
STEVE: I have to ask you about your vehicles, cause that’s a controversy. Natalie, what's up with Wong Way Veg? Let me guess: It's Asian based.
NATALIE: So, my business partner is Lisa Wong. She started the truck about 10 years ago, and we do take a bunch of recipes from her grandmother and veganize them. So, there is a little bit of an Asian twist to it, yeah.
STEVE: Okay. Okay. Helen Williams from Best One Yet: Is it an ice cream Vespa or an ice cream truck?
HELEN: That's a great question. So, we started with the Vespa when we first began and then we graduated to a truck in 2020.
STEVE: All vegan?
HELEN: All vegan and gluten free.
STEVE: Not even sure how to do that. How do you do lots of ice cream without the cow?
HELEN: Yeah, we do it with the coconuts.
STEVE: Thank you. Love it.
ABI: The creativity is so crazy with vegetarian and vegan cuisine. It's not just like a salad with an oil-based dressing anymore. There’s — I saw like an Alfredo sauce with cashew? Made with cashew ground up and oyster mushrooms on wooden bones wrapped in rice paper to make like a fried chicken?
STEVE: Oh, is that the drumstick?
ABI: Yeah, the drumstick! You guys must have so much fun coming up with different combinations. And then, of course, like, bringing in different cultures into it as well.
HELEN: Totally. It should never feel like a sacrifice. There's really good food to be had, and there's really great substitutions and ways to be creative.
ABI: Yeah. What are some of the more creative dishes that you've done or something that was like, “Oh crap, this is really cool. Like we made this.”
NATALIE: Well actually, recently it was Mile High Asian Food week and so Wong Way Veg had a sit-down pop-up with Taeko San Takeout, and we did a fish dish which was made with jack fruits. It had the tofu skin to be the outer layer and— it was very unique. I don’t know how Lisa pulled it off.
ABI: That's so cool.
NATALIE: Yeah.
ABI: And had the textures that you're looking for.
NATALIE: It had the texture, yeah.
STEVE: Well, you can both speak to this because you both had the food trucks in Denver for how long?
NATALIE: About 10 years.
HELEN: Yeah, about nine years for me.
STEVE: Yeah. So, okay. Not your first rodeo. We are generations now down the road in families who are raising families vegan and vegetarian. So, the creativity that that Abi talked about is like built in. You're not like: Vegetarian — okay, tomato soup. Right? Salad. It’s — we’re miles beyond that.
HELEN: Oh yeah, and options are growing every day which is great.
STEVE: Are chefs across the board like, they gotta go gluten free? They gotta have something vegan on the menus now across the board?
HELEN: I think we're lucky to live in an area where that is generally true. Yeah, people are almost always having an option that we can enjoy.
STEVE: Okay. Yeah, options is what we want. There's the problem with too many options, but —
ABI: Never.
STEVE: Just come back. We're not ready yet. Hey, you guys are behind now what is called VegFest? Which, why not in Denver? This should be the place where people just come out for — is it all vegetarian food trucks?
HELEN: Mhmm. So, we do — it's an all vegan event. Everything there is vegan from the desserts to the main courses. We have speakers that come that are chefs, cookbook authors, athletes that are vegan. Just to shed some light on what it can look like and how expansive it can really be. I think when people hear it, they think it might be limited to — like you were saying, just salads or something — but it can be so much more.
STEVE: So, you’re doing demonstrations and lectures and stuff like that?
HELEN: Yeah, absolutely.
NATALIE: Yeah, there's four speakers for the June event. We have another VegFest in fall as well, September 28th. So will be another four speakers then, but we'll yeah, we'll have some chef demos. There's like a — she mentioned the vegan athletes. There's actually going to be a gal coming to specifically talk about raising your children vegan that will be in September, so. Wide variety.
STEVE: Okay. VegFest Colorado is June 8th at the Auraria campus. And I’ve got to sharpen my knives. I've got to do some interesting things with peppers, some interesting kabobs, some, you know…BBQ doesn't mean it can't be vegan.
HELEN: That's totally true. Yeah, you can get really creative with it. Yeah. You should come get inspired.
ABI: Yes, get inspired. Are there collaborations between any of the food trucks or is everybody giving their own special menus?
HELEN: There might be a little bit of each. Usually, people will plan to come out — all the food vendors really put in the work and do something special and unique that's usually exclusive to VegFest, which is really exciting. And there have been collaborations between vendors and that might happen again this year. You never know.
STEVE: How many trucks? What are we — what are we up to now in our 10th, 11th, 12th year? She's counting cause she's got the list in her head. I can see the mental map.
HELEN: Yeah, so we also — a lot of our food vendors are pop up tents as well. So they are in pop up tents in full kitchens doing full meals. Preparing. So, I'm counting those too. It's a lot. It's mostly a food festival. There's of course other things like artists and makers, but it's mostly food.
NATALIE: So, there's about 85 vendors total. Yeah, and about maybe, I don't know, 40%, half?
HELEN: Yeah, at least half of that is food.
STEVE: Whoa. Okay, now I'm impressed. I wasn't thinking it was that big, but again, why not? Why not Denver, which has really, you know, pushed the envelope on this?
ABI: Are they all local or do you have people coming in from like neighboring states?
HELEN: We actually do have a couple of vendors coming from out of state this year. I know we have — Element Vegan Cuisine is coming from California. We have a chocolate vendor that's coming in from California as well, yeah.
STEVE: Natalie Gilbert from Wong Way Veg, Helen Williams from Best One Yet. She does ice cream. From a Vespa or a truck. And they're telling us about the VegFest Colorado 2025. The website is vegfestco.com.
ABI: I got one question cause I know, like we said there's so many thoughts about vegan food that aren't actually true. Like, it's boring or whatnot. Is the scene here the vegetarian and vegan scene, like, tight knit because, you know, people might not might have different views of what it is?
NATALIE: Yeah, I think we're definitely tight knit. We also run some free monthly events as well. And so, we see the same vendors all the time, and we're always working together and even hanging out outside of work. So, there's a lot of closeness in this community.
STEVE: Sounds like a pretty cool meat-free community they're doing — doing the thing. Thank you, Natalie Gilbert, Wong Way Veg. Helen Williams from Best One Yet. Vegfestco.com. It's coming up June 8th at Auraria campus, and we'll catch you all there.
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