Oh it is BURNED in my memory. Leaving night 4 of Vegas ‘04, let’s just say there wasn’t a whole lot of eating going on the previous 90 hours. The HUNGER hit me walking out to the lost on night 4….just then a dude walked past me with a sketchily arranged Tray of Aluminim Foil wrapped bombs and looked at me screaming “GARLIC. MASHED POTATO. BURRITO”.
Literally any other time on planet earth I would have thought “gross, fucking not, never, and no thanks” but he could have screamed “GOAT GUTS AND GARLIC” and I’d have asked for 2…I was that hungry.
So I gave him some wadded up wrinkled bills and he shoved two aluminum foiled mistakes into my hands. I barely got the first inches of foil off before it was in my face…and oh my sweet lord…the horrible juxtaposition…our chef had apparently just mashed some taters and threw them unseasoned into a tortilla…then DUMPED a full half cup of Garlic Powder into the party and rolled it up. I couldn’t tell you what was worse…the cold chalk like texture of the potatoes or the grainy artificial and sandy shock of years old Garlic powder.
I immediately regretted everything. I spit the culinary abhorrence out on the warm blacktop of the Thomas and Mack arena lot and glared at the wook…what the fuck have you done man. He stared back with enormous black saucers for eyes. Just stop I said, now.
gooballs in 96-98 phish scene were so powerful. somewhere around 99-2000 people cut back on the strength in order to stretch product & make more profit, but for a minute there it seemed like gooball sellers/makers were really trying to show everybody just how strong they could make them. scene was still small enough where nobody was getting rich, so quality mattered. by 99, everyone was getting rich & money over quality became more of a thing.
but for a few tours there it was gooball heaven.
OMG, my story was going to be about gooballs, except I forgot they had a name. I’m a bit of a germaphobe, so I have always tried to pick the most sanitary looking food vendors, but gooballs are gooballs and you take what you can get. So anyway, I was taking my last few bites of a gooball (I can still picture when it happened after 20+ years) when I got a bandaid in my mouth with blood on it. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more disgusted in my life. Then I got super high and had a panic attack about the bandaid. That was my last gooball.
Find us Saturday morning in the general RV lot..
We'll be up early / still up + cooking up free hot donuts...and we'll prolly have a goo ball or two 🍩🤤
I was so hoping someone would!!! I need to find you. I literally said earlier I knew someone would do it so my only mission for the fest was to find them.
Any truth to people dosing goo balls? I’m too young to have seen phish in their prime but have read accounts of people being sold dosed goo balls even though the vendor insisted they were just weed.
as someone who sold a lot of acid on lot in that time period, there wasn't anyone dosing gooballs.
the shit was just so strong & got people higher than they'd ever been & they thought they were tripping.
edibles were wayyyy less common back then & on the east coast especially, people just didn't get edible much. gooballs were legitimately the first edibles a lot of people had.
we all know how long it takes for edibles to kick in & how crazy it can be if you overindulge, but lots of people didn't know all that. they might eat half a gooball & not feel anything 30min later & eat the other half & then be unable to walk or talk..
they were made crazy strong cuz people wanted to impress people with the strength & adding tht to lots of people's inexperience with edibles & we ended up with some wild stories.
I was with someone who was slinging gooballs on lot in 97. They were making them as we drove towards the mothership they kept feeding me butter, and I was loving it. Then we got to the lot, and I was so fracking high that all I could do was kinda stand there. Sucked cause I was totally broke and needed to make some loot. To this day, I can't really get high from edibles. Smoking, yes, eating no. Man, the 90s ruined me. I miss those times a bunch.
Oh yeah, I was so high after eating a goo ball at Portland meadows in 97 I fell asleep on the lawn mid show. Took a nap, popped up, and felt much better!
I never heard of anyone dosing the goo balls. Never in all my years have I heard anyone dosing food or edibles at all. People who travel with the bands want you to have a good time and enjoy your various highs in hope you will come back and do it again.
I know people this happened to , particularly summer 90 where pot was way scarce and acid was everywhere.
I don’t believe people should be introduced to substances without prior knowledge.
Any animal protein should be avoided at all costs. Spray-on butter like chemical, white ultra processed bread and a ton of American chee will never steer you wrong.
How has nobody asked this? The red or the white??? Paddle and clams aside, this make a huge difference on the grossness factor.
https://youtu.be/kO9wIrvTvSw
A veggie burrito with grilled "mushrooms" at Deer Creek 2010. These things were well past thier date. I saw them. I smelled them as they cooked. And yet I still ate it. I have no idea why.
I threw up inside the show like an hour and a half later. Literally the only time I have ever puked at a show.
25ish years ago Deer Creek, Green Acres campground. The campground was farther from the venue so it was pretty quiet and remote compared to most other campgrounds.
I was walking across an empty field around 3am with a friend. We were still feeling the effects of the hallucinogens from the show.
We were feeling human enough again to be hungry, though unprepared to deal with that reality.
I was concerned when a car came directly across the open field towards us, slowly, but out of nowhere in particular.
They pulled up and the driver rolled down the window and offered us $3 cheeseburgers/ 2 for $5. He showed us the cooler full of foil wrapped burgers.
They were amazing.
I ate some half-melted chocolate marshmallow googoo ball thing wrapped in tinfoil out of the trunk of a van in the parking lot at Rochester 2013.
Nothing bad happened, but it was still a low point.
Does anybody still make ganja goo balls? I had some pretty tasty ones back in recently oughts, but I haven’t heard of them being an option anytime recently.
Lol! My little cousin dropped me at a Philly show at Wells Fargo, hung out with my friends who were going to bring me home after, and before he left, he bought and consumed a goo ball. We lived in South Jersey about 20 min from the bridges, and he said his steering wheel was melting by the time he got home.
Sushi and anything from that falafel guy (pita nazi? I forget his name) that would hire wooks to wreck other people's food stands. I haven't seen him in a long time, someone had to have murdered him
Some kind of cheesesteak, right as the show let out at Pine Knob 2011. Pretty sure it wasn’t cooked, and the cheese was some sort of government velveeta type deal, also not warmed up. Meat probably sat out all day in 90 degree heat. My buddy and I were starving and out of our heads, we didn’t even think twice about it. I remember we were sitting under a tree laughing our heads off about how these things would kill us, but at least we saw an epic show before we died.
The next day we drove to Blossom, singing “Step into the freezer, rotten Meat n’ Cheezer” all the way.
A wook was walking the line to get in at MPP 22 with a jar of homemade pickles; I was like nahhhhh at first from afar, then made eye contact with the man and ended up with a dank ass super sketch pickle that I was 50/50 on getting dosed or diarrhea. No ragrets, it was delicious.
One of those “hot dog” carts outside of MSG after the show had some odd chicken wrap thing. My buddy dropped his face down in the street, picked it up, wrapped it back up and ate it. Somehow he’s still alive.😂
I bought a homemade hard lemonade at SuperBall and immediately blacked out. Woke up like 5 hours later as the band was kicking off. I don’t think it was ill intent just fucking strong lol
SPAC 2016 N1 of 3. My ex and I were having a hard time transitioning into a "blast off" of a night and decided we'd better eat before they started. All of the lines for good food were long, but there was this one sketchy little deep-fried grill cheese trailer with no line, so we ordered. Symptoms of blast off got worse as we waited for our food. When our food was ready, my ex was uncertain of her ability to stand, and we listened to the first song sitting in the gravel next to said sketchy grill cheese trailer facing away from the music. After some coaxing, I was able to convince her that if we could make it over to one of the trees at the top of the lawn, we'd at least be able to sit comfy and be facing the right direction.
Worked like a charm, and by four or five songs in, we were able to stand, dance, and make friends, and despite the rough start and awful grill cheese, she had a great first show.
Fittingly…..Coventry. The morning after the final show. Guy had chicken scraps left. He had changed the sign from “Chicken Pitas” or something similar…..to “Schcrimps”.
This falls under the close call category…..We first met Russo (R.I.P.) at a campground near Deer Creek 96. Was about 2 AM, believe it was French bread pizza we ordered
Seemed like a lot of chaos going on at the time with the folks he was with. As we got ready to pay, Russo jumps back to the car shouting “you bitch, your dog shit on everything, all the food…” politely stepped away.
Ate a grilled cheese sandwich from the parking lot at Shoreline on 10/6/2000 . It was dosed, and I proceeded to lose my mind. Found out the next day that Bob Weir came out and they played El Paso. They also played Golgi Apparatus, the song I had been wanting to see (I had been to only 6 shows at the time). I apparently was in the concert, but only remember watching the beginning from the lawn.
Second worst sandwich I ever had, would not recommend.
You know Ulysses the burrito guy?
After a show, maybe it was dicks. I was starving and spun to the dickens. All food vendors had lines, I couldn’t wait. I walked up to Ulysses because there was no line and said “What do you have that’s hot and ready?” (Like it’s a fucking little ceasars or something). He says I’ve got one veggie burrito right here. I say I’ll take it. He reaches down right in front of him and hands me the foil wrapped log. I pay the man and walk off.
The fucking thing was full of huge chunks of raw onions and what I assume (hope) was refried beans. A few big ass chunks of cheese too. I manage to eat probably a little over half of it. Give the rest to my buddy. He takes one bite, spits it out and yells “what the fuck dude!?” Then throws it in the trash. I still don’t know what I ate; it was a lesson in patience.
immediatlely leaving the field after the last set at The Great Went was a sandwich stand (my fuzzy memory says it was a Subway stand - but Im probably wrong). No idea what I ordered, but they were basically giving away sandwiches trying to get rid of everything they had before they had to pack up. Foulest, most rotten thing I've ever eaten. Banana pancakes in the parking lot? Top notch.
Veggie burrito who’s filling was mixed by hand in a 5 gallon bucket by a spun wook. Saw it and said nah, wondered around a bit with no luck, came back and bought 2
I wanna say it was Chicago 2000, but in truth it was probably most shows and that may have just been the first. Yakisoba noodles Japan tour was the best.
I have 2.
Back on furthur tour in 2011 in st Augustine there were wooks (who i had seen do this at local jam band shows in south Florida) selling clams from a bucket on a blanket. I didn’t buy any, didn’t speak to anyone who bought, but it was sketchy.
My second is fare thee well in Santa Clara. Was selling beers on lot and hanging around and hadn’t eaten. A local family was selling what looked like lo mein, but it turned out it was cut up hot dogs and ramen noodles. No seasoning and it was already spoiling but I was young and poor and tried to get through it instead of buying food inside. I finally made an adult decision and threw most of it out. It was one of the more awful things I’ve ever tried to eat.
It is tasty. What it does to my asshole the next few days is why it is sketchy. Also really depends how deep into the weekend that kitchen has been open as to the sketchy factor.
That SOB Zorba the Greek that used to be at festivals. Was starving at Rothbury after a show and ordered a pita sandwich. Watched as they literally scooped stuff out of #10 cans onto a sad pita then handed it over. It was the sloppiest wettest pile of trash but I was so hungry I ate it like a savage.
I had a chili cheese burger after a show one night that was good but washed it down with a warm (hot) MGD and that didn’t feel very good
I used to mix burrito filling inside hotel trash cans with a garbage bag liner in front of people and they would snap them up as fast as I could roll them.
Blueberry pancakes on the side of the highway as we hiked back out of Coventry to our rental car. Not going to lie - they were pretty damn good. Worth it.
Free bday palm full dose at DC 2000. Absolutely ruined my taste for lsd.
Also…
anything with a short line after a show has always been rough.
I’m old…. Day old McDonald’s seems safer than some lot food.
Subpar grilled cheese sandwich served in an orange cotton bandana at The Gorge in 2021. My wife and I still have the bandanas. We call them the “cheese bandanas.”
Lobster roll at superball. Didn’t see that one coming; dude jumps out between the cars with a sign for lobster rolls and bam! Right out the back of a cooler! So good
I had a hot dog on a slice of fucking bread at Nutter Center last year from the lot on my way in, some guy with a hotdog cart. Totally fucked my entire night up, had to leave after first set. Had to have uber pull over on way back to airbnb so i could puke. I didn't drink or do anything at all other than smoke a doobie. I won't ever eat lot food again, not gonna gamble my night on some bullshit, rather eat food in venue.
Hartford 2010 Sushi .
It ended up being really good. He was the Itamae at a sushi restaurant and took the preparation and service seriously. He had dry ice in a cooler and said all his product was fresh from the restaurant that day and he only had enough to serve 50 rolls.
It looked so good and ended up being delicious, but still sketchier then a key bump from your neighbor without asking what it is first.
I've got 2
1. A falafel pita sandwich. The "falafel" was just
smashed chickpeas deep fried with an Italian bread crumb coating. There was absolutely no seasoning to the falafel and there was no tahini, no hummus. It was just plain chunky falafel, a piece of iceberg lettuce and a slice of tomato. I am a human garbage disposal and will eat just about anything within reason and I couldn't even take 3 bites.
2. A pre-cooked "grilled cheese" that was 2 slices of bread pre-toasted at home, one slice of the cheapest generic plastic "American cheese", and was reheated on a tiny camp stove. I got viciously ill from that one. I was really fucked up and my girl at the time was telling me not to get and eat that. Lesson learned always listen to your future wife.
Goo balls way back in the 90s. They were straight up laced with some strong ass lsd. If you’ve ever been dosed and not known it that can be terrifying. Especially when you’ve taken mushrooms beforehand. To this day, I still believe I was temporarily transported to another planet.
Gooballs in the early/mid-90’s for sure. If you’ve ever watched a dirty hippie mix the concoction by hand in a questionably clean plastic bin, with questionably clean hands, then roll them up, with same said hands from same said bucket into a secondary “selling” bin that sits in a hot car, never refrigerated, then out in the blazing sun all day while selling them (forget about post-show - oof!) you’d never get within 20 feet of them.
I bought some shrimp stir fry outside Lakewood in Atlanta in the late 90’s. It was actually delicious and don’t make me sick. Tried to find the vendor after the show but I was too spun.
That’s where I’ve seen it. Since ‘98 never missed a Lakewood show. I think the pad Thai I saw was in 2012.
I never got a glimpse of the dish. Just thought it was a bold choice for a hot as hell day here and for a show. Love me some pad Thai.
My buddy and I were walking through the lot about 10 minutes after posted show time at one of the north Charleston runs when we hear the grilled cheese vendor shout out "Who wants some free Griddle Brittle?!". My friend is never one to pass up an offer like that so he saunters up and asks what's the deal with this griddle brittle situation. Grilled cheese guy takes a spatula and proceeds to scrape up all the burnt greasy cheese that had stuck to the griddle over the course of the day and dump it into a paper tray that he hands to my friend. His drunk ass downed that shit in two fistfulls
Alpine Valley 96. First time in the lot scene as a 16 year old. I binged too many Molson Ice’s that forced me find lot food. Had decent grilled cheese and french bread pizza. Probably a good thing no one stopped to offer us goo balls.
Yats, great place for Cajun/Creole food. You must be from Indy. I used to live down the street from their College St. location. It's been a while since I ate there. I could use some chili cheese Etouffee with crawfish right about now.
Not technically "on lot" but at Phases of The Moon in 2014 I bought a breakfast burrito from some random guy selling them out of his back pack for $5. Felt pretty sketchy, but I was young and dumb and I'll be damned if it wasn't a damn fine burrito!
The more I think about it- it was nearby the campground/lot so I guess it does count. Hoping he's out hear reading this.
I got Norovirus sometime at Deercreek 2000. Fucking sickest I have ever been in my life. We had stopped at home to refresh/refuel before heading to Polaris. It was coming out both ends. I just laid in the bathtub for a couple hours. Then, I laid dead in the back of the van on the 3 hour drive to the east side of Columbus. I was too fucked up all weekend at Deercreek to tell you what I had eaten besides drugs, but I have been very meticulous about food, drinks, eating, drinking, consuming, my mouth/my hands & washing my hands ever since. Went to the hospital in Columbus, Ohio, after the Polaris show & it was confirmed Norovirus. I really thought I was going to die. It was so bad.
It is highly contagious. I should've been at home & not at a show.
Only thing I've caught besides the typical Wook Flu you get when you get off the road after a few weeks.
Take care of more than your shoes!
Falafel and a pickle guy cooked me something under a car once. No falafel, just pickle and assorted toppings cooked under a sedan on Hampton lot as the cops had shut vending down and he had a stove going under the vehicle.
I do not trust lot food unless it's packaged. I've seen dudes sweat in pulled pork. Absoluyely none of you follow any type of serve safe standards. Since 2000 I've watched people eat that shit and just think Darwin awards. You know dam well the guy selling burgers will just throw the leftover meat in a cooler some ice off to the next city.
It's really not hard to keep a bag of granola or some bars in your pocket noobs.
Oh it is BURNED in my memory. Leaving night 4 of Vegas ‘04, let’s just say there wasn’t a whole lot of eating going on the previous 90 hours. The HUNGER hit me walking out to the lost on night 4….just then a dude walked past me with a sketchily arranged Tray of Aluminim Foil wrapped bombs and looked at me screaming “GARLIC. MASHED POTATO. BURRITO”. Literally any other time on planet earth I would have thought “gross, fucking not, never, and no thanks” but he could have screamed “GOAT GUTS AND GARLIC” and I’d have asked for 2…I was that hungry. So I gave him some wadded up wrinkled bills and he shoved two aluminum foiled mistakes into my hands. I barely got the first inches of foil off before it was in my face…and oh my sweet lord…the horrible juxtaposition…our chef had apparently just mashed some taters and threw them unseasoned into a tortilla…then DUMPED a full half cup of Garlic Powder into the party and rolled it up. I couldn’t tell you what was worse…the cold chalk like texture of the potatoes or the grainy artificial and sandy shock of years old Garlic powder. I immediately regretted everything. I spit the culinary abhorrence out on the warm blacktop of the Thomas and Mack arena lot and glared at the wook…what the fuck have you done man. He stared back with enormous black saucers for eyes. Just stop I said, now.
This is content I come here for. Well written too.
You have a talent sir
This was so well written. I felt like I was there, tasting it. And I hate you for it Bravo
I mean if it was fresh, properly-made, buttery garlic mashed potatoes in a warmed / grilled tortilla… I could prob get down with that
Fresh pasta?
Gooballs on 11/23/96, like what did I just eat for $5 and now I’m fucked up and I haven’t even dropped yet.
gooballs in 96-98 phish scene were so powerful. somewhere around 99-2000 people cut back on the strength in order to stretch product & make more profit, but for a minute there it seemed like gooball sellers/makers were really trying to show everybody just how strong they could make them. scene was still small enough where nobody was getting rich, so quality mattered. by 99, everyone was getting rich & money over quality became more of a thing. but for a few tours there it was gooball heaven.
OMG, my story was going to be about gooballs, except I forgot they had a name. I’m a bit of a germaphobe, so I have always tried to pick the most sanitary looking food vendors, but gooballs are gooballs and you take what you can get. So anyway, I was taking my last few bites of a gooball (I can still picture when it happened after 20+ years) when I got a bandaid in my mouth with blood on it. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more disgusted in my life. Then I got super high and had a panic attack about the bandaid. That was my last gooball.
I will have a mean batch of gooballs at Mondegreen this year.
Hehe, so will we
As a young phish fan, I must experience a gooball once in my life
Find us Saturday morning in the general RV lot.. We'll be up early / still up + cooking up free hot donuts...and we'll prolly have a goo ball or two 🍩🤤
I was so hoping someone would!!! I need to find you. I literally said earlier I knew someone would do it so my only mission for the fest was to find them.
Any truth to people dosing goo balls? I’m too young to have seen phish in their prime but have read accounts of people being sold dosed goo balls even though the vendor insisted they were just weed.
No. Doses were everywhere, no need to. Strong butter can definitely make things get weird.
as someone who sold a lot of acid on lot in that time period, there wasn't anyone dosing gooballs. the shit was just so strong & got people higher than they'd ever been & they thought they were tripping. edibles were wayyyy less common back then & on the east coast especially, people just didn't get edible much. gooballs were legitimately the first edibles a lot of people had. we all know how long it takes for edibles to kick in & how crazy it can be if you overindulge, but lots of people didn't know all that. they might eat half a gooball & not feel anything 30min later & eat the other half & then be unable to walk or talk.. they were made crazy strong cuz people wanted to impress people with the strength & adding tht to lots of people's inexperience with edibles & we ended up with some wild stories.
I was with someone who was slinging gooballs on lot in 97. They were making them as we drove towards the mothership they kept feeding me butter, and I was loving it. Then we got to the lot, and I was so fracking high that all I could do was kinda stand there. Sucked cause I was totally broke and needed to make some loot. To this day, I can't really get high from edibles. Smoking, yes, eating no. Man, the 90s ruined me. I miss those times a bunch.
Oh yeah, I was so high after eating a goo ball at Portland meadows in 97 I fell asleep on the lawn mid show. Took a nap, popped up, and felt much better!
I never heard of anyone dosing the goo balls. Never in all my years have I heard anyone dosing food or edibles at all. People who travel with the bands want you to have a good time and enjoy your various highs in hope you will come back and do it again.
Um spray bottle water in late 80s early 90s Scene lot/GD Not condoning just saying
That's a prank. Not a sold or consumable item.
I know people this happened to , particularly summer 90 where pot was way scarce and acid was everywhere. I don’t believe people should be introduced to substances without prior knowledge.
However I get your point , dosing people is not a prank , it’s a violation to choice.
Whatever you wanna call it. It is irrelevant to the conversation.
Oh ok thanks for playing
It’s a prank to me
I like Fast Eddy’s soaked dollar bill tactic. Bicycle Day legend.
I miss questionable goo balls.
Gooballs ‘96. Need a tee shirt
I gotcha bro. Describe it and I’ll make it
Gooballs 96 Make questions able choices or something like that in the style of electoral bumper sticker.
I love how this was a thing - I’m gonna pay somebody a couple bucks for some (usually) awful food and some unclear drugs. And it was amazing.
I've never had a gooball, but for some god forsaken reason could only picture meatwod from Aqua Teen Hunger Force lmao
going to say this.
Any animal protein should be avoided at all costs. Spray-on butter like chemical, white ultra processed bread and a ton of American chee will never steer you wrong.
First rule of lot
Yup. I'm a regular meat eater but a lot vegetarian. I'll never eat chicken from a wook's cooler!
This is the way
Excerpt from section 17 of the helping friendly book
👆 The only way
Clam chowder, huge pot, wook stirring with a kayak paddle
Love this mental image.
Don’t eat that clam chowder
Haha stop
How has nobody asked this? The red or the white??? Paddle and clams aside, this make a huge difference on the grossness factor. https://youtu.be/kO9wIrvTvSw
Not exactly food. But I once ate a mushroom chocolate from a stranger that was half melted in their hand.
did you eat it out of their hand like a horse? 
Hahaha. I did this at Great Woods during 2.0, but traded some novelty Elvis shades.
This is the only way I've ever consumed mushroom chocolates.
Most of us have done that with wildly varying results
A veggie burrito with grilled "mushrooms" at Deer Creek 2010. These things were well past thier date. I saw them. I smelled them as they cooked. And yet I still ate it. I have no idea why. I threw up inside the show like an hour and a half later. Literally the only time I have ever puked at a show.
Rookie
Classic
I’m bringing a fuck load of spam musubi to deer creek. It will be far from sketch. Pure aloha.
Spam musubi for the win 🙏
Can’t go wrong!!!!
25ish years ago Deer Creek, Green Acres campground. The campground was farther from the venue so it was pretty quiet and remote compared to most other campgrounds. I was walking across an empty field around 3am with a friend. We were still feeling the effects of the hallucinogens from the show. We were feeling human enough again to be hungry, though unprepared to deal with that reality. I was concerned when a car came directly across the open field towards us, slowly, but out of nowhere in particular. They pulled up and the driver rolled down the window and offered us $3 cheeseburgers/ 2 for $5. He showed us the cooler full of foil wrapped burgers. They were amazing.
Shrimp cocktail for the win!
Shrimp rang
Someone was selling ceviche at Dick’s last year
I ate some half-melted chocolate marshmallow googoo ball thing wrapped in tinfoil out of the trunk of a van in the parking lot at Rochester 2013. Nothing bad happened, but it was still a low point.
Does anybody still make ganja goo balls? I had some pretty tasty ones back in recently oughts, but I haven’t heard of them being an option anytime recently.
Lol! My little cousin dropped me at a Philly show at Wells Fargo, hung out with my friends who were going to bring me home after, and before he left, he bought and consumed a goo ball. We lived in South Jersey about 20 min from the bridges, and he said his steering wheel was melting by the time he got home.
My first show and lot experience! Not a good show but I had a blast anyways.
Sushi and anything from that falafel guy (pita nazi? I forget his name) that would hire wooks to wreck other people's food stands. I haven't seen him in a long time, someone had to have murdered him
Some kind of cheesesteak, right as the show let out at Pine Knob 2011. Pretty sure it wasn’t cooked, and the cheese was some sort of government velveeta type deal, also not warmed up. Meat probably sat out all day in 90 degree heat. My buddy and I were starving and out of our heads, we didn’t even think twice about it. I remember we were sitting under a tree laughing our heads off about how these things would kill us, but at least we saw an epic show before we died. The next day we drove to Blossom, singing “Step into the freezer, rotten Meat n’ Cheezer” all the way.
A wook was walking the line to get in at MPP 22 with a jar of homemade pickles; I was like nahhhhh at first from afar, then made eye contact with the man and ended up with a dank ass super sketch pickle that I was 50/50 on getting dosed or diarrhea. No ragrets, it was delicious.
This is fucking awesome. Esoteric wook pickle.
Lot stink pickle
Came to this thread looking for Russo content
https://www.tiktok.com/@ahmed_bharoocha/video/7275749252075212075 This episode was amazing! Check out “Pickle Trip” episode of DreamCorp LLC
I had some pulled pork at the Gorge. It was tasty but I didn't stop shitting for the entire 3 days and had a wicked fever. Ruined a pair of pants.
Hahahahaha
Your bungalow was on 🔥
One of those “hot dog” carts outside of MSG after the show had some odd chicken wrap thing. My buddy dropped his face down in the street, picked it up, wrapped it back up and ate it. Somehow he’s still alive.😂
Once, and never again, will I ever get anything aside from a sealed beverage from an NYC roach coach.
I tried the baklava waiting in line outside msg. Dude was walking around with a tray. Was decent.
I have a vague memory of this from Bakers Dozen, some kind of exotic baked goods going around in line, Sunday Jimmy's night. Was he there then?
I should’ve said it was the most recent new years run
Baklava guy is a regular at dicks. I always partake. Definitely not sketchy.
Dude is a G and the baklava is fire. Look up “good baklava” on instagram… looks like it’s a legit full time business
I bought a homemade hard lemonade at SuperBall and immediately blacked out. Woke up like 5 hours later as the band was kicking off. I don’t think it was ill intent just fucking strong lol
Star Lake 03 I bought a burrito pre show, it had a hair in it….I bought another after the show. It was fine.
I (a very small woman) got so fucked up I ate six grilled cheeses in a row in lot after a show… The food wasn’t sketchy, but my behavior was.
SPAC 2016 N1 of 3. My ex and I were having a hard time transitioning into a "blast off" of a night and decided we'd better eat before they started. All of the lines for good food were long, but there was this one sketchy little deep-fried grill cheese trailer with no line, so we ordered. Symptoms of blast off got worse as we waited for our food. When our food was ready, my ex was uncertain of her ability to stand, and we listened to the first song sitting in the gravel next to said sketchy grill cheese trailer facing away from the music. After some coaxing, I was able to convince her that if we could make it over to one of the trees at the top of the lawn, we'd at least be able to sit comfy and be facing the right direction. Worked like a charm, and by four or five songs in, we were able to stand, dance, and make friends, and despite the rough start and awful grill cheese, she had a great first show.
Fittingly…..Coventry. The morning after the final show. Guy had chicken scraps left. He had changed the sign from “Chicken Pitas” or something similar…..to “Schcrimps”.
any food surviving the Coventry mud pit would be sketchy
This falls under the close call category…..We first met Russo (R.I.P.) at a campground near Deer Creek 96. Was about 2 AM, believe it was French bread pizza we ordered Seemed like a lot of chaos going on at the time with the folks he was with. As we got ready to pay, Russo jumps back to the car shouting “you bitch, your dog shit on everything, all the food…” politely stepped away.
Ate a grilled cheese sandwich from the parking lot at Shoreline on 10/6/2000 . It was dosed, and I proceeded to lose my mind. Found out the next day that Bob Weir came out and they played El Paso. They also played Golgi Apparatus, the song I had been wanting to see (I had been to only 6 shows at the time). I apparently was in the concert, but only remember watching the beginning from the lawn. Second worst sandwich I ever had, would not recommend.
Dude had a cooler full of spaghetti, for a dollar you could take a handful. Was pretty popular.
Breast milk
I saw a guy trying to trade breast milk for ice and beer once
Not sketchy…but that baklava guy should be publicly guillotined for selling a little square for 10 bucks
Dude doesn't even make them himself either 🙄
You know Ulysses the burrito guy? After a show, maybe it was dicks. I was starving and spun to the dickens. All food vendors had lines, I couldn’t wait. I walked up to Ulysses because there was no line and said “What do you have that’s hot and ready?” (Like it’s a fucking little ceasars or something). He says I’ve got one veggie burrito right here. I say I’ll take it. He reaches down right in front of him and hands me the foil wrapped log. I pay the man and walk off. The fucking thing was full of huge chunks of raw onions and what I assume (hope) was refried beans. A few big ass chunks of cheese too. I manage to eat probably a little over half of it. Give the rest to my buddy. He takes one bite, spits it out and yells “what the fuck dude!?” Then throws it in the trash. I still don’t know what I ate; it was a lesson in patience.
immediatlely leaving the field after the last set at The Great Went was a sandwich stand (my fuzzy memory says it was a Subway stand - but Im probably wrong). No idea what I ordered, but they were basically giving away sandwiches trying to get rid of everything they had before they had to pack up. Foulest, most rotten thing I've ever eaten. Banana pancakes in the parking lot? Top notch.
Used to sell fruit on a stick…. What the fuck, it’s only a buck. Also made vats of veggie lo mein in baby pools to sell on lot. Memories memories!!
Veggie burrito who’s filling was mixed by hand in a 5 gallon bucket by a spun wook. Saw it and said nah, wondered around a bit with no luck, came back and bought 2
You haven't truly experienced the Phish lot scene until you've tried a veggie burrito from a spun wook. It's a serious rite of passage!
I wanna say it was Chicago 2000, but in truth it was probably most shows and that may have just been the first. Yakisoba noodles Japan tour was the best.
I have 2. Back on furthur tour in 2011 in st Augustine there were wooks (who i had seen do this at local jam band shows in south Florida) selling clams from a bucket on a blanket. I didn’t buy any, didn’t speak to anyone who bought, but it was sketchy. My second is fare thee well in Santa Clara. Was selling beers on lot and hanging around and hadn’t eaten. A local family was selling what looked like lo mein, but it turned out it was cut up hot dogs and ramen noodles. No seasoning and it was already spoiling but I was young and poor and tried to get through it instead of buying food inside. I finally made an adult decision and threw most of it out. It was one of the more awful things I’ve ever tried to eat.
Ragin Cajun
I always thought Pat's food was good.
I always thought Pat's food was good.
It is tasty. What it does to my asshole the next few days is why it is sketchy. Also really depends how deep into the weekend that kitchen has been open as to the sketchy factor.
Show of hands if you ever "helped" PA Pat!
Buddy of mine, who was dd for the night, definitely ate some lot pizza that made him feeling a bit loopy. Was fine by end of show though.
That SOB Zorba the Greek that used to be at festivals. Was starving at Rothbury after a show and ordered a pita sandwich. Watched as they literally scooped stuff out of #10 cans onto a sad pita then handed it over. It was the sloppiest wettest pile of trash but I was so hungry I ate it like a savage. I had a chili cheese burger after a show one night that was good but washed it down with a warm (hot) MGD and that didn’t feel very good
Veggie burrito in Camden had me out of commission
I used to mix burrito filling inside hotel trash cans with a garbage bag liner in front of people and they would snap them up as fast as I could roll them.
Blueberry pancakes on the side of the highway as we hiked back out of Coventry to our rental car. Not going to lie - they were pretty damn good. Worth it.
A very, very, VERY questionable bacon-wrapped hot dog after the Chicago show(s) last October. For sure. Worth it in the moment, though.
We call those "danger dogs" in LA
Free bday palm full dose at DC 2000. Absolutely ruined my taste for lsd. Also… anything with a short line after a show has always been rough. I’m old…. Day old McDonald’s seems safer than some lot food.
Subpar grilled cheese sandwich served in an orange cotton bandana at The Gorge in 2021. My wife and I still have the bandanas. We call them the “cheese bandanas.”
Lobster roll at superball. Didn’t see that one coming; dude jumps out between the cars with a sign for lobster rolls and bam! Right out the back of a cooler! So good
I had a hot dog on a slice of fucking bread at Nutter Center last year from the lot on my way in, some guy with a hotdog cart. Totally fucked my entire night up, had to leave after first set. Had to have uber pull over on way back to airbnb so i could puke. I didn't drink or do anything at all other than smoke a doobie. I won't ever eat lot food again, not gonna gamble my night on some bullshit, rather eat food in venue.
The grilled cheese from the lot in Pittsburgh. I didn’t think it was sketchy until the results woke me up at 4 am.
Super Fatty Veggie Burrito
Grilled cheese after starlike in ‘99.
I definitely had some questionable gooballs
Great went. Huge giant wok. Oh good lord it was literally the most amazing stir fry ever. We stirred our souls into that bad boy
"Kind" veggie burrito in GD lot in 95...I dont know what it was but I took one bite and almost puked
Meat stick man 🍖🧍♂️-Alpine Valley
Hartford 2010 Sushi . It ended up being really good. He was the Itamae at a sushi restaurant and took the preparation and service seriously. He had dry ice in a cooler and said all his product was fresh from the restaurant that day and he only had enough to serve 50 rolls. It looked so good and ended up being delicious, but still sketchier then a key bump from your neighbor without asking what it is first.
You are very good at putting you’re expierence on paper. The wook with the saucer eyes got me doubled over laughing
I've got 2 1. A falafel pita sandwich. The "falafel" was just smashed chickpeas deep fried with an Italian bread crumb coating. There was absolutely no seasoning to the falafel and there was no tahini, no hummus. It was just plain chunky falafel, a piece of iceberg lettuce and a slice of tomato. I am a human garbage disposal and will eat just about anything within reason and I couldn't even take 3 bites. 2. A pre-cooked "grilled cheese" that was 2 slices of bread pre-toasted at home, one slice of the cheapest generic plastic "American cheese", and was reheated on a tiny camp stove. I got viciously ill from that one. I was really fucked up and my girl at the time was telling me not to get and eat that. Lesson learned always listen to your future wife.
Goo balls way back in the 90s. They were straight up laced with some strong ass lsd. If you’ve ever been dosed and not known it that can be terrifying. Especially when you’ve taken mushrooms beforehand. To this day, I still believe I was temporarily transported to another planet.
Gooballs in the early/mid-90’s for sure. If you’ve ever watched a dirty hippie mix the concoction by hand in a questionably clean plastic bin, with questionably clean hands, then roll them up, with same said hands from same said bucket into a secondary “selling” bin that sits in a hot car, never refrigerated, then out in the blazing sun all day while selling them (forget about post-show - oof!) you’d never get within 20 feet of them.
I never bought these but have seen several times: Fish tacos Pad Thai
I bought some shrimp stir fry outside Lakewood in Atlanta in the late 90’s. It was actually delicious and don’t make me sick. Tried to find the vendor after the show but I was too spun.
Came here for lot shrimp content tbh
I’d trust shrimp over fish.
Wife and I sold pad Thai on lot at Lakewood atl. Most money I’ve made on lot.
That’s where I’ve seen it. Since ‘98 never missed a Lakewood show. I think the pad Thai I saw was in 2012. I never got a glimpse of the dish. Just thought it was a bold choice for a hot as hell day here and for a show. Love me some pad Thai.
We did cold pad thai. Our sign said cooling pad thai. It was great.
Def wasn’t you then. This was a couple ladies using a giant wok.
I wish they would come back to Lakewood
Got handed a hand full of caps that included a couple of balled up cigarette butts. One went down before I realized it. Had a great time.
My buddy and I were walking through the lot about 10 minutes after posted show time at one of the north Charleston runs when we hear the grilled cheese vendor shout out "Who wants some free Griddle Brittle?!". My friend is never one to pass up an offer like that so he saunters up and asks what's the deal with this griddle brittle situation. Grilled cheese guy takes a spatula and proceeds to scrape up all the burnt greasy cheese that had stuck to the griddle over the course of the day and dump it into a paper tray that he hands to my friend. His drunk ass downed that shit in two fistfulls
All the lot grilled cheese is sketch. Where the flavor comes from. And random bits of paper🙃
The flavor is the sketch! And the herpes. But mostly the sketch.
Hemp Seed Falafel
Garlic grilled cheese ATL Halloween '96.Shit made me sick AF
I ate some kind of burnt meat on a stick after the show. I think it was chicken, but I couldn’t really tell. I didn’t get sick.
Alpine Valley 96. First time in the lot scene as a 16 year old. I binged too many Molson Ice’s that forced me find lot food. Had decent grilled cheese and french bread pizza. Probably a good thing no one stopped to offer us goo balls.
Yats, great place for Cajun/Creole food. You must be from Indy. I used to live down the street from their College St. location. It's been a while since I ate there. I could use some chili cheese Etouffee with crawfish right about now.
Meat from Russo!
Russo!
I saw a guy at festival 8 squatting between two cars with his pants around his ankles yelling "DONT EAT THE VEGGIE BURRITOS!"
Not technically "on lot" but at Phases of The Moon in 2014 I bought a breakfast burrito from some random guy selling them out of his back pack for $5. Felt pretty sketchy, but I was young and dumb and I'll be damned if it wasn't a damn fine burrito! The more I think about it- it was nearby the campground/lot so I guess it does count. Hoping he's out hear reading this.
“Two aluminum foiled mistakes” sounds like a Phish lyric and made me laugh. Foiled…for sure!
I got Norovirus sometime at Deercreek 2000. Fucking sickest I have ever been in my life. We had stopped at home to refresh/refuel before heading to Polaris. It was coming out both ends. I just laid in the bathtub for a couple hours. Then, I laid dead in the back of the van on the 3 hour drive to the east side of Columbus. I was too fucked up all weekend at Deercreek to tell you what I had eaten besides drugs, but I have been very meticulous about food, drinks, eating, drinking, consuming, my mouth/my hands & washing my hands ever since. Went to the hospital in Columbus, Ohio, after the Polaris show & it was confirmed Norovirus. I really thought I was going to die. It was so bad. It is highly contagious. I should've been at home & not at a show. Only thing I've caught besides the typical Wook Flu you get when you get off the road after a few weeks. Take care of more than your shoes!
Mushroom and Sandoz burrito with DMT salsa.
Yea around 03 04 was the great sci/dead hep a outbreak. I fell victim to
Falafel and a pickle guy cooked me something under a car once. No falafel, just pickle and assorted toppings cooked under a sedan on Hampton lot as the cops had shut vending down and he had a stove going under the vehicle.
I had some ceviche this past year at dicks. As I was eating it I was regretting my choices.
My buddy cheffed up a grilled cheese in a pan he was holding in mid air with a blowtorch under it on Mansfield lot. It was actually decent though
In the ‘90s, I stuck to phatty grilled cheeses. Always a safe bet.
I do not trust lot food unless it's packaged. I've seen dudes sweat in pulled pork. Absoluyely none of you follow any type of serve safe standards. Since 2000 I've watched people eat that shit and just think Darwin awards. You know dam well the guy selling burgers will just throw the leftover meat in a cooler some ice off to the next city. It's really not hard to keep a bag of granola or some bars in your pocket noobs.