Taste of Soul Family Festival

I went early and good thing. It quickly packed up by noon and HOT this year. Lots of food vendors, local businesses, hospitals, schools and all city offices — they should consider expanding their interest to include employment/​recruiting since they have a big community audience at the festival. It’s not every day they shut down Crenshaw (well, with all the on-​going construction in the area, that’s not necessarily true anymore) but you know what I mean. Looking forward to the block party next year!

This was so much fun! Lots and lots of food, dancing, crafts, and just a great time to be had by all. Bring plenty of money and comfortable shoes. It gets very crowded and the lines to eat are quite long but it’s worth it.

Good family time to walk, eat, and be entertained. The last standing block party that i know of in Los Angeles. Ladies dancing and playing double dutch in the street. Soul food smells of barbeque, fried cat fish, Caribbean flavors and so on fill the air. Live professional performances on three different stages. Plenty of food, fun, sun, and exercise. Bring your cold water bottles.

Great idea but not so great execution.
First of all, it is waaay too crowded that you can’t even walk especially at the entrance and exit. They should not allow people to set up chairs and camp out in front of the stages at the ends. It makes it really difficult to enter and exit the festival or see the performers. Also they should not allow other vendors to blare music right across from the stages. This drowns out the music being featured.
Second, I was disappointed in the food vendors. No impressive soul food that I found and too much FRIED and unhealthy food. Including fried brocolli! I understand fried is part of soul food but they can offer other things that are also soul food.
Third, not enough art vendors. Not impressed with the retail vendor selection either. Blah!
I came excited to have good soul food and hear good music but left tired of too many people and disappointed. They should also pick a wider street or extend the area to accommodate such a large crowd.
Pros: easy breezy transportation via the expo line. No worries about parking! Enjoyed what I could of the music considering the cons listed above. Free!
I doubt I would return to this street festival and I love street festivals.

Totally nice today everybody was great no drama! Had something for everybody there!!!

From 2011 – 2013 I attended this wonderful event right in the heart of Crenshaw Blvd right around mid October, which is my birthday month yay!
Local vendors, shows and such line up the street. I was luck enough to catch a performance by R&B star Mario the last time I came. Pretty cool. They have a Krispy Kreme donuts shop that is open during the event. It is always jam packed. You will always see various news stations reporters handing out autographs and I taking pictures! My suggestion is that they need way more food vendors. People come to this street festival in the thousands. That means they need to get cranking on them meals! I have tried various foods here, from spaghetti to chicken to Jamaican dishes as well. Forgot what it was, but it was damn tasty!
Overall, this is an event that everybody should attend. It is jam packed crowded here. Bring blankets and chairs, as they have performances later in the evening. Parking is a hot mess. They’ll let you park in some of the parking lots. Other than that, be prepared to walk a great deal. Just Über it or bus it! Its worth coming here! Think I’ll be back this upcoming month!

I didn’t expect to see such a big crowd. It was a free event for admission for food was not cheap. Nevertheless, the lines for food were long. It was great to see many vendors got rewarded well for their hard work. It was certainly not easy to feed so many under the condition where the food booths were set up. There were a lot of food to choose from, the problem was we couldn’t try more than one kind as I didn’t even finish the goat curry that I bought. I would like to see the vendors serving sample size food so that we could really have a real taste of soul. Another problem was there was no place to sit down to enjoy the meal unless one brought his/​her own chair. Overall, I was impressed by how clean they kept the place, the staff constantly cleared the trash cans to make room for more. They even have temporary sinks set up outside of the portable toilets. I heard that parking was challenging and had was happy that I could get there by taking the Metro Expo Line that was within walking distance to Crenshaw/​Rodeo.

There will be no parking so mentally and emotionally prepare yourself to walk 7 blocks or more. For a huge a event like this in this area, the cops are hounds for parking violations and tickets so please read the signs and don’t park even an inch in front of someone’s driveway.
There will be thousands of people. They need more food vendors!!! The lines for the few vendors they had were at the least 20 plus people. Clearly this event needs to expand to accommodate the amount of people that attend.
The artist & performances were fun and in that aspect they did very well.
P. S. Take side streets when trying to leave and avoid Crenshaw. You’ll thank me later. Traffic is at least an hour or so.

Always a fun event! The event is free, but you have to pay for any food! It is very crowded but lines at the food stands, for the most part, move quickly. Take the Metro Expo line instead of driving!

This is a free family event that Danny Bakewell that put together for everyone since 2005. This event is on October on Crenshaw Blvd and stretches from Stocker St to Rodeo Rd. They offer shuttle rides in designated areas.
There’s plenty of vendors that stretch along the walkway if Crenshaw Blvd. The venders consist of many foods, clothing, jewerly, beauty supply, hair salons, health test, informational booth and etc… There is a Gospel stage, The Wave stage and KJLH stage. The stage’s consist of different performing artistes, from non celebrities to celebrities. They have a children area where they can get face painting done and play games. Some of the children even performed in a competition on the Wave Stage. (NO ONE’S A LOOSER EITHER)
This event is from 10:00 am –7:00pm and it gets very crowded. It gets into the hundred thousands so get there early. And don’t forget your lawn chair.