The JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE is offering a new concept for groups and conventions looking to add variety—and a little Angeleno flavor—to their midday meal functions: Gourmet Food Truck Lunch. As an alternative to the traditional convention luncheon, the hotel will work with event planners to host several of the city’s well-known food trucks for a festive, outdoor and very memorable meal break.
“Being able to offer such a uniquely Los Angeles experience to my attendees was a significant selling point,” said Theresa Miller, Corporate Events Manager for Digital River. “Many of our guests had heard about the food truck fad, and were thrilled to have the opportunity to sample some of the famous LA street food. It’s an event that will definitely be remembered!”
The hotel’s Events team work with meeting planners to determine which trucks to feature, and how many items to include per truck menu based on the number of attendees. Trucks park alongside the hotel’s convention center drive or adjacent event deck, and plenty of picnic-table style seating is provided. Guests wander among the parked trucks and order from individually posted menus - just as they would off the street. Since street food portions are traditionally smaller, guests often find themselves sampling multiple trucks – from Korean barbecue tacos to lobster rolls to red velvet chocolate chip pancakes.
“This is a creative way to show off the city’s culinary and cultural diversity, and leverage a popular and fun food movement,” said Bill Buckley, Director of Sales and Marketing, JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE. “The cost to host a truck lunch is roughly the same per person as serving a buffet-style meal in one of our meeting rooms—so it’s a very viable option for most planners.”
Los Angeles currently boasts a fleet of more than nine-thousand food trucks, and some of the most talked-about trucks participate, including the Kogi BBQ Truck, The Buttermilk Truck, Coolhaus, Lobsta Truck, Get Shaved Shave Ice, Nom Nom Truck and Baby’s Badass Burgers. Guests can also often find truck fare from popular L.A. chefs – like Susan Feniger’s Border Grill truck, Wolfgang Puck’s Gastrotruck, and Ludo Lefebvre’s Ludo Bites Truck.
The JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE offers 100,000 square feet of meeting and event space – three ballrooms, nine ancillary meeting rooms and three boardrooms. The proximity to the Los Angeles Convention Center combined with the variety of meeting space and number of rooms, makes the JW Marriott a popular choice as a convention headquarters.
