Casa Pacifica Angels 20th Annual Wine & Food Festival

WARNING: Casa Pacifica will send you unsolicited text messages if you give them your phone number! I’ve attempted to contact them, asking them to discontinue this practice, and yet I continue to receive texts from them on an annoyingly regular basis. It’s a nice event and it’s a good cause but I’m sorry that I ever had any contact with this organization.

2 years in a row and still an unbelievable experience all in the name of charity. I just read that they raised $ 400,000 toward their $ 2 million dollar budget just with this event! Not joking, the port-​a-​potties are so beautiful you’ll be glad you paid the money just on that! More importantly, the food is amazing. All those restaurants, many you might never try are all available with friendly folks for you to try their goodies. Some of my favorites were Brat Brothers, Brophy Brothers, Surf Brewery and Los Arroyos. There was so much food/​drink you really can’t get it all. Only negatives, the lines seemed longer this year, especially the Stella beer garden in the VIP tent. They did a really good job with the VIP entrance this year!

Usually love this event — have been going for years.
But this year, some of my favorite places skipped this festival AND the event seemed very «beer» heavy. (Also a lot of pork dishes…) I thought it was WINE… (as I WHINE about the lack of wine, feel free to «pun”-ch me)
Thank you very much — I’ll be here all week.

Great event supporting a great cause!
Thanks to Unilocal (and Brittany B.!), Jim G. and I were able to enjoy some VIP treatment at this event. Arrive early! We did, accidentally, but it worked out perfectly. It was a challenge to park, as we did not have the VIP Parking Pass, but we convinced the parking attendant that I was just being dropped off (the other alternative was to park in General Admission and take a shuttle. We already drove about 10 minutes down a windy road just to get to the VIP section, we’d have to go all the way back and down another road a far ways to park in Gen Adm; no thank you!) so that I could get the parking pass and we could park. Between that and actually checking in, there was already quite a line to go into the VIP Welcome Toast area and then another one to get into the event itself.
The space is lovely, the event was huge, live music was great, and there was a wide variety of food and beverages to sample. For what it’s worth, I would recommend (for some vendors) to have larger signage. As it got busier, which it certainly did later in the day, it was almost impossible to know what was at the front of many lines without actually walking up there to see.
The VIP area was a bit of a godsend later in the day as I felt too many people were just roaming around without paying much attention to where they were going and bumping into everyone. It’s no fault of the event, of course, but it was nice to retreat to a safe little standing room at a table.
Tons of fun and a great way to help a very worthy charity!

I won VIP tickets to this (Thanks Britt), and took my 80 yr old Dad yesterday. I was so thankful for the cool weather. To me this made it more enjoyable. The people were so nice, and its always great meeting new people. I think my Dad tried at least a dozen wines, and he had the best time. I liked the food from Los Arroyos best. The vendors were all more than willing to let you try more than one sample if you wanted it. I was the designated driver, so i could only try a couple sips of about 2 drinks. I always wanted to go to one of these, and have to say it was quite an experience. The long walk to parking was the only downfall, but maybe it was rougher since i had surgery two weeks ago. LOL. All in all a great time, and something my Dad may never get to attend again.

5 star event! the only thing that could have made it more perfect was the weather. it was cloudy all day except for the drive there and back home.
thank you Unilocal and casa pacifica for the tickets! We drove over an hour to get to this event, but it was well worth it! I’d guess there were over 100 booths to try. by the end, my stomach hurt from eating so much, and i definitely gained about 5 lbs. My favorite was the 9021Pho booth — thank you for having a vegetarian option! Delicious and spicy broth! I wanted to get a second helping before leaving, but it looked like they ran out by then. Also loved the new england clam chowder, shaved ice, and creamy parmesan grits.
By 3:30, there were lines at almost every booth, but none of the waits were too bad. There were plenty of staff and security on site to direct us to the right places. we didn’t realize the VIP booth for green wristbands was all the way towards the back until a few hours into the event. fail. That’s where we should have been the whole time! The live band was great and couches were a welcome respite. the salmon sushi in there was bomb! (the bean sprouts not-​so-​much.)
We also took photo booth pictures and i got an airbrush tattoo on my lower back. Yay for tramp stamps!
My one suggestion for a future event is to improve the parking and ticket-​pickup process. The catch 22 was that we aren’t allowed to park in the VIP lot without the VIP parking pass. You are supposed to get the VIP parking pass at check-​in. but you can’t park the car to check-​in. So you have to have one person sit in the car with the hazard lights on, and have another person jump out of the car and pick up the passes. This would have been fine, except that the traffic control guys got mad and yelled «MOVE ALONG» on their bullhorn. but the cars had nowhere to go! i had to drive around in circles like at the airport.

What an awesome event and its for charity to boot!
Lissa G and I arrived at the event early and we were glad that we did. There were a lot of people entering as VIP guests prior to the general public. Once inside the options between food and drinks seemed endless. From corporate representation, like Trader Joe’s to many local restaurants, breweries, and wineries. They also had a large silent auction area which was nice to check out in between all of the sampling.
It did get much busier once the general public arrived but it never felt impossible to get any particular food or drink. The nice part of the VIP ticket was the VIP only area where you could get away from the crowds a bit and enjoy some other food and drink option, and another band.
It was a lot of fun and all for a great cause.

First and foremost this was such a great event that benefited such an awesome and worth while cause. I didn’t know much about Casa Pacifica before yesterday’s event but had the opportunity to meet and mingle with some people who worked there and was informed about the literally life changing stuff they do in the community!
Second a major thanks goes out to the best Unilocal community manager, Brittany B for giving me the awesome tickets. So THANK YOU!!! You rock!!!
Now on to the event… Parking kinda sucked per other reviewers. We had VIP tickets and couldn’t park without our passes (which were at will call)… Maybe in the future they should have a list with the guy at VIP parking with names of people whose tickets are at will call, just an idea!
Major kudos goes to the smart cookie who decided to get the plastic plates with the wine glass holders! You deserve an award! I hate going to parties where you walk around with a plate in one hand a drink in another… I was able to fill my plate to the brim, drink and have fun with no hassle!
V.I.P welcome tent made me feel like royalty… Champagne welcome drink with a big fat strawberry from one of our local farms and amazing appetizers from Mastros! Also loved getting to enjoy the event for an hour before general admission was allowed in. We didn’t find the VIP tent until we were almost finished, they seemed to have a thousand tents for purple wristbands but not green and the main VIP tent was slammed, but they had additional food, drinks and a different band which rocked. Servers were awesome and did table service!
I loved getting to sample food from local restaurants that I haven’t had a chance to try, and some others that I frequent! Wine and Beer that was at the booths was great and there was hardly ever a line at a booth. Everyone did an amazing job keeping things moving right along. I ate my weight in food, and left full and happy! The variety of food was seriously just out of this world, Fresh Oyster Shooters from Market Broiler in Simi were some of the best I have had, Brats Brothers had a a great selection of sausages and sauerkraut. The Sugar Lab and their delicious cupcakes, Verona Trattoria and So good and So delicious who made a phenomenal pork belly pastrami, it was the stuff dreams are made of!
The silent auction’s selection was great and i’m still bummed I didn’t get to take anything home. Can’t wait until next years event, maybe by then I won’t be full!