1st 8th Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational

What a waste of time and money… maybe that’s why it was the LAST grilled cheese event.
ha-​ha!!!
The only fun thing was hearing the cheesy jokes on stage.
The cook off area seemed weak and boring, glad we did not get a ticket to judge.
Samples — only one and it took for ever to get.

Was a whole lot of fun. It was a great, little, well-​organized event.
The free samples were great, and the selection of grilled cheeses were superb! I kind of wish more of the trucks had smaller sizes for sandwiches, even if it was just for the event. Some of the trucks offered «try it» size sandwiches at a fraction of a whole or half-​sandwich cost, and those were the ones I actually bought from.
I wanted to try a variety of grilled cheeses at this event — I didn’t want to commit to just one or two big ones! If more of the trucks could go with that philosophy, it would be phenomenal.

Attended the 2013 Grilled Cheese Invitational this weekend. It was something to try at least once. I can’t say I will go back but glad I tried something new. The beer garden was good, but thought it would be better if you could walk around with your beer, rather than be confined to one section. Thought it was a bit pricey, $ 15.00 a ticket, $ 10.00 parking, $ 5.00 a beer and you had to pay for your food too. There was one vendor handing out free grilled cheese samples, and a place giving out free cheese samples. Props to them for their generosity.

Still pretty good. Prices went up slightly from when I was first here a few yrs back. Good to try, maybe not so much to repeat.
$ 12 entrance. Buy ahead and walk in.
Free/​sponsored things this year were Cabot cheese, Jarritos, some pickle (forgot the name but pretty good pickles), and Boulder chips. Ffree cheese samples and what seemed to be unlimited grilled cheese samples from Cabot. There was a «make your own» station sponsored by Breville sandwich maker. Gave us the option of cheddar or pepper jack, and option to add sundried tomatoes or not. That was actually pretty good :) They also had a raffle for a sandwich maker every hour… didn’t win :(
The MC for the main stage running the contest and the various things all day was an absolute trooper! He was witty, funny, and energetic till the end. It was a hot day and he was working out in the sun from at least 12:30−4ish (that hours my friends and I were there). Even at 4 he was still going and working the crowd. Definitely prop to him and the other working the stage.
The grill cheese sandwiches I tried (as purchases from food trucks/​stands) this year were only so-​so… maybe it was just the ones I happen to try. Nothing specifically stood out as a must try, except the Green Span booth, which was actually giving away free sample to promote their new restaurant. They used tallegio, and is was gooey and delicious. Plus they were supporting Homeboy industries/​bakery which, for what I know of them, seem like a really great cause.
It wasn’t too crowded over all but had plenty for entertainment and people watching.
The beer garden was good. $ 5/​beer ticket. Some booths were giving samples.

I went to the Grilled Cheese Invitational for the first time this year and I had a great time. A lot of friends (and Unilocal) mentioned that the event was highly unorganized but I decided to give it a go. Some of my friends were going and I wanted some grilled cheese.
I bought the general admission ticket. For a GA ticket, you are just getting entry. That’s it. Inside there were a few food trucks and stands serving their own varieties of grilled cheese. From what I saw, prices varied from $ 10-​$ 3 for grilled cheese sandwiches. There was one stand giving them away for free. Other freebies were bags of potato chips and cheese samples galore. The Coolhaus truck made an appearance and after having an ice cream sandwich, I was content for the day.
I also thought that overall, it was pretty well-​organized. I didn’t have any issues here.
I didn’t bother spectating the competition. There was no shade there and it was pretty hot out. Also, they had judges passes for people that can go and sample the grilled cheese sandwiches of the competitors. It didn’t look crowded in that area and no one looked like they were fighting over cheese samples.
They also had a beer garden. Awesome.
I would be happy to return next year.

We should have read the reviews before we bought tickets… We love grilled cheese sandwiches, so we thought this would be a fun thing to do and bought judge’s tickets. The 2012 event was held at the Rose Bowl in parking lot K.
We were expecting a lot more booths and giveaways, but there were maybe 3 sponsors total. The rest of the booths were vendors selling items. So you’re basically paying $ 15 (regular admission) or $ 25 (judge’s tickets) to go in and buy food.
This all might have been overlooked if they had just done the judging competition in a way that could actually be enjoyed. Instead, you’re forced to stand behind a metal fence watching competitors cook at a distance while at the same time enduring people yelling at the top of their lungs and acting like fools trying to get sandwiches to sample/​judge from various «runners». If I had tried to think of the worst possible way to run a food judging competition, I would be hard pressed to come up with something worse. The event was so disorganized that we even saw non-​judges entering the judging area because the «security guards» simply didn’t see or stop them. Between the two and us, we probably tried around 7 samples before we decided it just wasn’t worth it and left.
We had read on their facebook page that each judge would be able to sample 10 items. This was NOT done or enforced in any way.
At your next invitational, I suggest that you make it more pleasant and bearable:
1) Give each judge 10 tickets to redeem for samples
2) Get rid of the runners
3) Let judges line up at their own pace to try samples from any 10 competitors they choose
Watch some shows such as Top Chef and see how they run their events. And one more tip, when using a microphone on stage, yelling louder does not equate to better…

No, don’t go!!!
I’ve gone to the last two Grilled Cheese Invitationals, and let me tell you this is the biggest waste of money. You’d think that after paying money for tickets you would get more samples of grilled cheese, but in fact you have to buy these samples from vendors, and it ain’t cheap. The lines are long, food portions small, and prices high. This is the first year I’m not going, and I’m not sad about it. I know where to get my good GC sammiches, and I don’t need to pay an arm and a leg to get them from here!

1. Pretty fun if you compete
2. Completely lame if you attend
3. Crowded and expensive
I’ve always gone to this as a competitor. The first year I went, it was awesome. It was held at Griffith Park. It was pretty well organized and anyone who wasn’t competing could judge the sandwiches. That year I came in 10^th for the Spoons category.
I skipped a year and came back the following year (where I got an honorable mention!). It’s pretty good if you’re a competitor because your $ 10 entry fee gets you a pan, a knife and a spatula plus a cool hat! I told my friends to come thinking like the year prior; they could sample some of the competitors samples. NOT TRUE! So, you pay an entrance fee to buy food from food trucks, wait an hour in a line to get inside of a beer garden where you then need to wait in line to buy a beer ticket so you can wait in line to get a beer…
In order to be a judge, you had to sign up weeks prior and pay your fee online. But anyone who missed the time slot to be a judge (which these slots also fill up pretty quickly) you get to pay to just watch and buy food.
These used to be a LOT more fun when they were smaller and less sponsored. I think this competition has sold out BIG TIME. Someone needs to start a new one.

Here’s what I liked:
Good free samples with lines that moved quickly.
The Tillamook free grilled cheese was actually pretty good.
Grilled cheese from one of the stands with duck and goat cheese
Got to be a judge at the hot knives competition and both sandwiches were AWESOME.
The funk band at the end with marching band instruments and people dancing on stilts was fantastic.
The beer garden had reasonable prices (albeit not the greatest selection).
Here’s what I did not like:
CONSTANT talking over the PA system. I didn’t need to hear the incessant, mindless jabbering of an MC when I was in the beer garden. You could here it everywhere (it was overwhelming if you were anywhere near the stage) and NOTHING INTERESTED WAS SAID. Not once.
The lines were sometimes not clearly marked (especially for the grilled cheese trucks 1 & 2). There was definitely a line to nowhere there.
The grilled cheese truck number two’s fully loaded sandwhich was too much. Also, the pulled pork inside was too sweet (tasted like it was slathered in KC Masterpiece, which is never an appropriate sauce for pulled pork).
Did I mention how loud and annoying the guys talking over the PA system were?
Although I did not get a judges ticket (they sold out before I could get one) my friend did. She thought it was not worth it, as you only got two tickets and had to do a lot of begging (which she, understandablely was not into).

This event is like communism. It’s great on a paper and awesome in theory, but no matter how well you try, the execution is where it fails and only a few actually enjoy it. Turning it from communism and «for the people» to a dictatorship where there’s only the elite that benefit from it.
You have judges and then you have VIP judges. Then you have the people. who crank out a ton of money to get into here, as well as pay left and right for just about everything.
You toss in the fact that people are waiting in long lines for essentially bread (with cheese in the middle), you have yourself a perfect example of communism.
And we all know what happened with communism. It fell.
In short the problem with this event is that it’s become way too big for itself. I hate to sound like some indie music lover but, it used to be cooler before everyone knew about it.
But it seems like that’s the case. Now you have massive crowds and even with the added amount of trucks and stations, unless you come here early or have some inside connections with the many well known organizers of the event, you’re pretty much a second class citizenship.
If you have to date a judge, get there really super early and have hook ups with insiders or any of those other factors, then perhaps the event isn’t doing all it can to appeal to the masses.
The cost don’t justify the trip out to it. From dealing with parking to the entrance to what you get and the amount of lines you have to wait to get anything. It just doesn’t scream good times.
I mean, I know whenever I see the grilled cheese truck on the streets I always see a line behind it. Did you really need to pay a fee to get in here to do what you could have on the streets of L.A. with the use of twitter?
Long lines. little food. a feeling of being underwhelmed. That’s what you can expect to find at the grilled cheese invitational.

In my opinion there is no point in going to this event if you are not a judge. If you are not a judge you can look forward to long lines for steeply priced food trucks/​tables, two free Tillamook basic, boring, dry grilled cheese sandwiches, chips, water and a pickle. I mean, really? That’s ridiculous and doesn’t sound fun at all. Oh, and pay for entry beer gardens. Lame. So if you go, sign up to be a judge for the grilled cheese contest.
The judges were held back from the cooks by and industrial strength crowd control barricade and they were not served by the cooks but by runners who were dicks. The runners would taunt the crowd with sandwiches and only give them to the loudest most obnoxious of screamers. One man next to me clapped like a dolphin while making baby noises to get a sandwich. Judges were only allowed to actually judge two sandwiches (in 2010 it was unlimited) and many sandwiches were unattainable even with a ticket. Due to «backstage judges» who were able to pick and choose their sandwich, the good sounding ones were in short supply. Regardless, I got to snack on some pretty tasty eats.
Honestly, if there was a limit on the number of judges, unlimited judging on sandwiches and runners who weren’t total assholes, this event would have been a ton more fun. Also if it were set up more like the food truck festival where different restaurants gave out bites of their sandwiches and the cost was included in the ticket price, it would be phenomenal.

Why do you ask does this event get such mediocre reviews…
I will break it down for :
1. It is poorly run.
2. It is falsely advertised
3. It is embarrassment
4. It is organized and run by a complete group of morons.
I went last year and just returned from this years event.
For the price of a Judging Ticket — entrants/​judges were given two tickets to redeem for two samples in the judging paddock — even though you were assured both when entering and from the moron on the stage who would not shut up the entire two hours I was there — prattling on and on and on about nonsense — that you/​judges would be guaranteed two samples for your tickets but actually could get as many as you wanted… «Blah — blah — I am a complete moron — no one ever listens to me in my normal day job so I can’t help but not shut my mouth now…»
In actuality — when going up to the judging line (don’t even get me started on the pathetic layout or design of the judging area) competitors would only give out samples to those judges they could get tickets from meaning judges only received and were able to judge two samples each. Now I am sure later on once most people exhausted their tickets and patience with few people having tickets left this would eventually change — but who the hell would be that desperate for a free grilled cheese sandwich to wait around for that moment (I know — the same people who Unilocal Carl’s Jr on this site…).
Upon seeing this I turned around and gave both my tickets away — I am not that hard up that I would stand in line to beg for a sample.
Instead I walked to the limited number of booths/​vendors selling sandwiches and bought something to eat. Went to the beer tents — ate the sandwiches drank a beer and looked around.
This was just sorry.
How about this…
Next year maybe the organizers can get in touch with some cheese makers and bring them in to sample the different variety of cheeses made here in California. Also — maybe bring in more than 15 food vendors (this is a festival right). Also — make the judging area such that judges can actually sample each competitors entries and make it a competition.
I am quite sure most reputable business approached by this same organizing committee could smell a stinker from two miles away and chose to keep their distance from this event — as should have I…
Finally — why are you charging people and entry fee — other than when most people walk in they would turn around 20 minutes later upon realizing not much is going on.
Festivals (real festivals) occur every weekend in real cities like New York and Chicago and there are no entry fees — because once people get there they stay for the festival. Oh is it because the price of the real estate you are renting in Los Angeles is that much more than in New York City?
Please get your shit together next year if you are to continue doing this.
And honestly — if I could not walk to this event as a side bar to my day I would not bother going.
MAN DOES THIS EVENT SUCK!!!
But I am more upset with myself than with the event as I am the one who bought the ticket two years in a row in the hopes of something better to do in a town with a dearth of events to attend…
And in the end I had fun but not because of the event but in spite of it as I had fun with the person I was with — but that had nothing to do with the festival…
Now off to the Moca…

I pigged out at this event and will definitely be back next year. That’s my tagline for this review.
Reading the other reviews nearly tainted my 5-​star experience. The format of the judging could be a little more je nais se quois, but at the same time, the «cheering for samples”-style was fun… I don’t know, I really didn’t expect anything with «Grilled Cheese» in it’s event title to be some kind of fancy food festival. It’s rough around the edges, like any good grilled cheese sammy should be.
I had SO MANY sandwiches! I don’t know, like 20 samples? More? Sometime’s whole sandwhiches! My friend was also stuffed and left in under an hour after falling victim to food coma and SoCal sun. So many samples were given out — was I just lucky? I stayed for the whole thing… It was more greasy, melty, and home-​cooked goodness than I’ve had in food festival memory.
Here’s how to get beg-​free and scream-​free sandwhiches: Just go to the areas on the fence with the least people. Especially furthest from the judging entrance. I was stuffed like a Thanksgiving Turkey. *I did not bother hitting ANY of the outside food trucks as they are accessible any other day of the year with lines 99% shorter. **I would have been miserable if I did not sign up to be a judge (this just means signing a waiver; all «applicants» are accepted)
So if your expectations are to experience an refined food tasting event, just remember that you paid $ 12 and it’s a grilled cheese buffet. Take your debonair derrière to The Food Event. Maybe I don’t really care when shit is ghetto as long as I get my money’s worth. In this case I was trying sammy’s with brie and pear, honey and homemade crème fraîche, bourbon sauce and ham, a frikkin bread bowl fondue! Not all were works of genius but all had heart. The sheer variety of things that entered my mouth would have made any porn star jealous.
There were also unlimited free Tillamook grilled cheese sandwiches, and then a Grilled Cheese poetry slam and a Cheese Calling contest — LOL. Rob Dyrdek was there, enthusiastic as ever. I usually write ornately but i think this type of review is befitting of a no frills, all chills pig-​out fest. Loosen your belt and take the hanger out of your ass before you show up ;P

Oh my — more haterade going on here.
Whenever there’s a public event, one should expect people to be there in droves, and long lines.
My FH and I bought tickets and signed up for the judging the first day it opened on April 1^st. Then the waiting began.
It wasn’t a week later, I realized that I had to be someplace right beforehand, and so the timing was going to be a little tight, but possible. I quickly dealt with what I had to do, and flew down to the FH’s house, and the two of us left to go Downtown.
Traffic-​o-​rama. I think we might need to figure out a more efficient way to get to places. I might get a GPS with the traffic option so we can avoid traffic. Traffic is really the bane of my existence.
Anyway, we FINALLY get there around 1-​sh — and it had started at noon. crap. It took place at the same area as the LA Street Food Fest on Beaudry. The climate was completely different, the line was around all the corners and it was generally more quiet than the LA street food fest. There were still plenty of people, but there weren’t people on top of people on top of people.
FH dropped me off near the line so he could find parking. Suprisingly, the line for the pre-​paid tickets moved rather quickly, so I ended up waiting for my FH inside the grounds.
Yes — bring your patience when it comes to these types of events. Lines will be long, and despite the planning, people will be everywhere, along with lines. Yes — bring water and SPF AND friends — to divide and conquer.
When we first arrived, I was STARVING. My mistake. We saw the long lines for BOTH Grilled Cheese Trucks (why? Why pay $ 10 – 15 to then payh more for the Grilled Cheese Truck. I don’t believe that they had any specials that I’m aware of)
So, we make a beeline to the judging area, which was a more limited area, but still pretty crowded for it’s size. The space was broken into two areas: The competitor section that was fenced off, then the area where people could line the fence to get samples. I believe we arrived at the end of the first round, so samples were slow and far between. I completely missed out on a HUGE sample, simply because I didn’t have a pen readily visible. Let me say I wasn’t too thrilled at that.
My FH saved the day by getting in line for the WorldFare Bustaurant while I waited to try and get samples, which this round I didn’t get bupkis.
After nomming a bit on the combo meal from bustaurant, I felt a little better to have SOMETHING in my stomach. I guess I had the expectations that I would have been swimming in Grilled Cheese at that point.
We returned for round two — which turned out to be MORE successful than round one. I had the charm and my FH had the muscle to get enough samples to get full on. We voted honestly.
We’ll definitely return for next year, and hopefully bring a few more people to join in on the fun. :)

I had an amazing time competing at the Grilled Cheese Invitational. Hope you all enjoyed my sandwich on challah bread with goat cheese, dates, and bacon, pan fried in butter. Thanks for making me the winner of the Honey Pot in the Professionals division.
Next year I’ll try the Kama Sutra division again, but I’ll bring my own knife, and a cover so i can get my cheese melted.

I’ve been to many LA events and knew what to expect.
— Bring your own water (there was no security)
— read everything on the website (discounted tickets and free judging sign up)
— park at a downtown friend’s place
— check the weather and bring a fan or umbrella
— get drunk before (your buzz will last longer in the sun)
— and go with a hot chick and friends who will divide and conquer to get samples at different tables faster
This was a great event with big sponsors. I was impressed. Next year I will work on my cheese calling so I can win a Sur La Table panini press too! Gripes would be signs/​labels for the contestants so we know who and what kind of sandwich we’re dealing with. Haters can go home and cry into their Krups sandwich press. With an expected 8,000 visitors, what did you want?

I’m not sure why this got mediocre reviews! I’ve been two years in a row and thought it was pretty fun! Honestly, if you don’t sign up to be a judge, it’s not really worth it, so we signed up both times and had a blast! People should definitely sign up beforehand… early birds get the worm people! So don’t complain because you were late! Also, if you’re smart, park a little further and WALK to the place so you don’t have to pay for parking! We parked about 3 – 4 blocks away for free… if we did it, so can you… so don’t complain about having to pay for parking! The organization was definitely better than last year! And I think the reason why they didn’t open up the competition to EVERYONE is because it became really chaotic last year when it was open to everyone and people had awful experiences and fights over grilled cheese! Yes, it’s true!
We went early (because we know how the lines can get) so we got there around 11am, an hour before the doors opened. We already smelled the butter while walking past the venue. We got in and there were free Izzes, free cheese cubes, free grilled cheese sammiches, free tomato soup and free drink samples! How could you not like that?! And you know how I love free stuff! haha. There were also food trucks inside, which we didn’t bother to touch because we could get that anytime on another day… and we had to pay! lol. I’m not sure why there were such long lines for the food trucks! I go to the Grilled Cheese Invitational for all the «free» stuff! Free is in quotes because we had to pay $ 10 to get in, so we just went to get our money’s worth! And I definitely think we did! And judging was fun too! We got to try a lot of different grilled cheese sammiches! =) What more can you ask for?

Where is the sea of Asian people– it’s a food festival!!?
Oh yeah, Lactose Intolerants!
Over a span of 3 hours, we waited in line (half hour) to get in, waited in more lines, ate some delicious eats and burned in the sun– all for some good cheesy fun! Upon entering, we immediately took advantage of the free goodies– tiny grilled cheese samples from Tillamook, Izze drinks, yummy Pacific Natural Foods tomato soup, pocketed cute tillamook pins (I LOAF YOU!) and stuffed my purse with free tasty Boulder Canyon potato chips. I think I saw Bradley Cooper roaming around?!
We bought some tasty treats from World Fare Bus, delicious carrot cake whoopie pie from Sweets Truck (from Auntie Ems), Icecream from Coolhaus, yummy Black Forest Bacon grilled cheese and soup from Oaks Gourmet. The most long awaited grilled cheese was from «fucking five time champs» Hot Knives where we got to the front of the line only to be told we had to wait in another pick up line just as long as the line we just waited in! We didn’t even get to try their signature winning sandwich!
After the LA Street Food Fest (same location), we were prepared to wait and pretty much free of complaints. But it does suck to know that this previously was a FREE event and this time we had to pay for entrance on top of paying for each individual truck items. Nonetheless, i’m still a food fest fan and look forward to the upcoming kkbq fest!

I’m glad food events happen. I think its great for our city of Los Angeles. The crowds of the past FoodTruck festival was a nightmare and it seemed that this was better. At least this time, I actually got to go inside within 30 minutes rather than wait 2.5 hours and not get in at all.
If I hadn’t prepaid online, I don’t think I would have shown up to the event. As the day approached I was reminded how bad the previous food festival was. But since I had a ticket and I signed up to participate as a judge I felt a duty to go.
You would think that being a judge would make the GCI experience that much better. I didn’t get any sense there was any better treatment of VIP experience because of it. In fact, I thought it was awful.
The contestants were lined up in two rows of tables with one single electric heater with a non stick pan. Separating the judges from the contestants were the mass of judges clamoring for a bite of the sandwiches that were prepared. Imagine if you will pigs or cows at a feeding trough, pushing and snorting there way to the front and waiting for one tiny morsel. Arms raised, hoots and hollers when a sandwich was finished. Sure its slightly exaggerated but it was a bit unorganized in how the ‘judges’ were to sample. Each contestant had one griddle to cook with while everyone waited on them to complete. I haven’t mentioned the official would swing by and take a sample too. I got 2 tiny samples in 1.5 hours. I got a bit annoyed and just left the judges area.
Eventhough I got 2 samples I was dying of thirst. Grilled cheese tends to get me thirsty. I wish there were more drink vendors around. That would’ve been nice. Something. Yes, I know Izze was there, as well as the beer sponsors. They could’ve easily had someone walk around with a carrier of beverages like at Dodger Stadium. Just sayin!
The lines at the vendors were a mess. Some went diagonal. Some zig zagged. Some were parallel. And as Michelle T. mentioned… there were TWO lines!
All in all it was a disappointed but I still had some good moments too. Chef Mark Peel was there with his creations (Delicious.) The American was there. They seemed to be doing it right. They had two huge griddles which cooked a lot of grilled cheese at once in the open. You got to see them cook the sandwiches. Very nice. Their lines seem to move and flow. A very good product too.
I’m glad the event happened, but I would be hard pressed to return unless I was convinced that there were improvements.

My friend and I decided to go to the Grilled Cheese Invitational today and it was just «OK».
Quite frankly, I don’t really think it was worth the $ 10 admission + $ 2.50 processing fee.
PROS:
— Gates opened exactly at 12PM
— FREE samples of cheese cubes, grilled sandwiches, tomato soup, chips, IZZE sparkling juice can, and another sample of some healthy tea!
— Not so crowded inside
— A lot of other things to check out!
— Lots of grilled cheese vendors/​trucks
CONS:
— The parking situation
— The long line OUTSIDE
— The long lines INSIDE
— People were cutting –_​–
It was really well organized, but I think it was just «OK». Unfortunately, it was not worth the «cheddar».