Matt Wake | mwake@al.com

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They get calls from operators of Nashville-based food-trucks and from Birmingham ones too, says Downtown Huntsville Inc. CEO Chad Emerson. "'Hey can we come to this event? We've heard how great it is,'" Emerson says. "We said, no, no. That's not our goal, to grow and make it the largest in the Southeast. But that's the reach of this event." Yes, three years in it was time for DHI, a non-profit development organization, to decide if their Street Food Gatherings, which attract an estimated 4,000 people on average to downtown Huntsville, were going to merely get bigger or actually get better. DHI decided to focus on the latter, Emerson says. DHI's 2016 Street Food Season kicks off 5 – 9 p.m. April 15 at AM Booth's Lumberyard, address 108 Cleveland Ave. N.W. Click through this slideshow for more information about the event and entire season. By Matt Wake

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The food lineup

The April 15 Street Food Gathering will feature 37 vendors, according to a list provided by DHI: Angel's Island Coffee; Back Alley Traveling Bistro; Badd Newz BBQ; The Big Cheese Truck; The Big Easy; Bigfoot's Little Donuts; Brain Freeze Ice Cream; Chupper Time; Crave Heat; Dale's Stuft Potatoes; Delightful Desserts; Doctor BBQ; Earth and Stone Pizza; Fire & Spice; The Food Truck; Frosty Halls Ice Cream; Gourmet Grits; Honeypie Bakery; I Love Bacon; Iceworks Shaved Ice; Kona Ice; Local J's; MaggieMoo's Ice Cream Truck; Nanny's Lemonade; Neon Lilly Café on Wheels; Nothing Bundt Cakes; Pearl Asian; The Peppered Pig; Piper and Leaf; PNC Food Truck; Rollin Lobstah; SouthFresh Mobile Catfish Kitchen; Sugar Belle; Suzy's Pops; Tim's Cajun Kitchen; Washington Square Catering; and What's Popp'N.

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The process

For 2016 Street Food Gatherings, DHI required interested vendors to submit their menus and a photo of their truck, trailer or tent as part of an application process. “In the past you just signed up and came,” Emerson says. “This year we actually reviewed (the trucks). And so we tried to bring in different types of food, food types that we didn’t have or that complimented each other. In the past we might have had five trucks that were all serving basically the same type protein or the same type baked good.”

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The beer

There will be more than 50 different craft-beers available at the Street Food Gathering kickoff, Emerson says, available at three different Lumberyard beer-gardens as well as at neighboring bar and grill Furniture Factory, address 619 Meridian St. N. These beers will include several offerings from Madison Country breweries. “We’re always preferential to our local brewers, which are the best of the state in any objective measure,” Emerson says. Both the Lumberyard and Furniture Factory are located within the Meridian Arts & Entertainment District, in which patrons can purchase alcoholic beverages from one licensed restaurant/bar and carry out those libations in a “to-go” cup to consume within district boundaries.

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The venue

AM Booth's Lumberyard is a sprawling, multi-room, part-indoor, part-outdoor space that exudes a vintage vibe. It was also the site of a previous Street Food Gathering as well as Microwave Dave Day, the 2015 inaugural all-day concert honoring local bluesman Microwave Dave. "The nice thing about the Lumberyard area is it brings a bunch of new things into play, for example the dog park's right there," Emerson says. "Here's a great place to bring your dog to an event and it's a dog-friendly event. Same with skateboarding. I love skateboarding. All the Tony Hawks of the world should come out and there's the skate park right there. So we think it's a great location.

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The music

Denim Jawbones, a Huntsville trio influenced by the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Black Keys and Prince, will be performing. The band will be set up outdoors, near the Lumberyard parking lot.

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The cost

Downtown Huntsville Inc.’s Street Food Gatherings are free to attend. This has no doubt played a role in their immense popularity in a Huntsville market in which residents are known to be quite, um, thrifty with their entertainment spending. It’s also no coincidence that another of the most well-attended recurring entertainment events to debut here in recent years, Lowe Mill’s Concerts on the Dock live music series, is also free to the public.

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The history

The very first Street Food Gathering took place in October 2013 with just five trucks. Interest mushroomed in 2014 when DHI announced, via social media and an AL.com article, its first complete season of Street Food Gatherings. "That was kind of the a-ha moment," Emerson said during our 2015 interview. “It’s about interesting food in interesting settings that really promote people gathering together with their friends and family and having conversations and doing things that are a little off-center but still a lot of fun, very approachable." There have been at least 16 Street Food Gatherings thus far.

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The upcoming editions

The 2016 Street Food Gatherings will continue through October, falling on the third Friday of each month. (That's May 20, June 17, July 15, Aug. 19, Sept. 16 and Oct. 21.) May through August, the events will take place on a closed-off Church Street between Big Spring Park East and Huntsville Museum of Art. The gatherings return to the Lumberyard in September. And then for the October finale “we’ll have at a mystery location that’s going to be pretty fun,” Emerson says.

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Sarah Cole

The interactive factor

In addition to making the culinary experience great, DHI wanted to make their 2016 Street Food Gatherings more interactive. So starting with the May edition, the events will host a promotion inspired by those Dude Perfect YouTube videos of trick golf and basketball shots and involving vehicles from sponsor Jerry Damson Honda. “The first person who can throw a football from the top of a building through the sunroof will get a thousand dollars,” Emerson says. “We’re going to have a fun way to pick the participants and we’ll have 10 participants a night and if none of them make it we’ll roll it over to the next one. If someone does, it’s done for the season.”

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The etc.

Leaf in Creek Outfitters will be setting up free hydration stations at 2016 Street Food Gatherings. “It gets hot out there, so readily available free water will be nice,” DHI Director of Communications Ellery Miller says. In addition, HeadCount, a New York based non-partisan organization that’s registered more than 300,000 voters since 2004, will be on-site registering voters. “Each month we’re going to have a cause, where we allow a nonprofit to set up and take advance of these great crowds.”