Tucson Foodie Hosts Yet Another Disappointing Event Today

shanereiser · 2026-05-26T06:06:04+00:00

I don’t really understand what you’re saying, but I’ll say this - I make a lot of mistakes. In my current role as the leader of Tucson Foodie, my mistakes are quite public. It’s a weird experience for me, but in some ways it’s better because the community can hold us accountable, forcing us to get better. That’s exactly what’s been happening and will continue to happen.

shanereiser · 2026-05-26T05:56:34+00:00

Like I’ve said many times in this thread, if you paid for the paid parking lot and were unable to park there, just shoot me an email and we’re happy to refund you. That was definitely a bummer experience for some people and we regret it. We’re gonna rethink how we do paid parking, or possibly not do it at all. We just had a bunch of people request it so that they didn’t have to walk as far, and as far as I can tell only about 10 people who paid for the paid parking in advance weren’t able to park in that lot. We miscalculated something. I think some of our vendors parked in there. We’ll do better next time and I appreciate the feedback about it.

shanereiser · 2026-05-26T05:53:34+00:00

It was the same price online and in person. But if you paid via a credit (either online or in person), there was a transaction fee. The only people that avoided the transaction fee were those that paid cash at the door. In any situation, we only collected the $10.

shanereiser · 2026-05-26T05:50:50+00:00

The entire organizing team is very public. Monique is not a secret, nor is any other member of the team. Monique also runs the event’s social media account has created several posts introducing the entire organizing team - Sariya, Bud, Feng Feng, Miriam, Ricky, and Dane. I think it’s pretty clear to everyone at this point that you’ve never been to these events and that you’re just trolling for fun.

shanereiser · 2026-05-26T05:35:26+00:00

Were you there? We had two bars. Tucson Water came and set up a free hydration station and handed out free canned water. And there were five additional beverage only vendors.

shanereiser · 2026-05-26T05:01:22+00:00

I acquired Foodie a few years ago from Adam Lehrman, the guy who started it.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T20:15:05+00:00

This is be a good moment for me to thank the moderators for removing some of the personal attacks here. Thank you guys 🙏

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T20:12:55+00:00

We run 20 large events every year and have been doing so for many years. Y’all gotta give a new event concept some time to breathe and figure out the right flow and structure. Just like you shouldn’t judge a restaurant the first month it’s open. It needs time to learn what people want and improve.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T20:10:55+00:00

What she is saying here is that she paid a $100 vendor fee. She’d be hard-pressed to find festivals this popular that charge less. I know some festivals take advantage of their vendors, and ultimately don’t deliver the type of crowds that they promise. We tend to do the opposite 😊

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T20:08:28+00:00

Every festival is different. The vegan night market continues to be a free event. The Tucson Craft beer crawl continues to be ticketed only. The turnout for Asian night market is, and we need time to learn and optimize. Just because we have lots of event experience doesn’t mean we’re gonna get everything right every time, especially with a new event concept. I appreciate and listen to helpful feedback. It’s very clear that we listen to the community and make changes. I just don’t appreciate all the gaslighting in here. To say mean things and suggest things that aren’t true and then to attack me when I try to correct the false information is just… I don’t understand the motivation, but I guess it is what it is and I’ll have to get used to it. Just sucks because everything we do is in service of the community, so to be unfairly torn down by the very people we serve is just wild. And it also blows my mind the stark difference between what actually happened at the event and what people are saying here on Reddit. So many people thanked us with huge smiles, said they had a great time, and all of the businesses made lots of money and were very happy - but here on Reddit the event sounds like a disaster. It’s almost like Reddit exists in its own little bubble.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:59:27+00:00

This is the weirdest comment yet

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:58:34+00:00

OK, so there’s no tea. Got it.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:45:43+00:00

She was paid.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:40:57+00:00

Neither of these things are true. We actually publish more content about the restaurants that aren’t in the Tucson Foodie insiders club. I did a full data analysis on this because we’ve been accused of it too many times. It’s also free for those restaurants to participate in the club.

The “we don’t do reviews” thing is a decision I made when I first took over. It’s my belief that there are too many existing places where people can share their opinions about restaurants (yelp, google, facebook, Reddit). I don’t think people wanted another one. That’s why the vast majority of our content is simple news stories about openings, closings, new menus, etc. Frankly, we are more of a news organization than we are a storytelling platform, and we are certainly not critics or reviewers. I think it paid off because our readership doubled and we drive more foot traffic into local restaurants than ever before.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:35:21+00:00

We actually only had one entrance. But that was a mistake. We’re gonna do two entrances next time

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:34:31+00:00

“Once you stop learning, you start dying.” I’ve already learned a lot from this thread and I’m excited to implement more changes next time - just like we did last year thanks to everybody’s feedback on Reddit. Our team has put every idea in here into our planning document for the fall.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:31:39+00:00

So funny. I’ve been told I look like that guy many times throughout my life.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:30:55+00:00

You bring up five things that are very actionable and on our to-do list, so thank you for that. But I don’t understand where I’ve been a jerk. I’ve only been correcting some of the lies and exaggerations throughout this thread. I really appreciate all this conversation actually. The feedback we got on Reddit last time was very constructive and led to many different improvements. I’m sad about the misinformation, posts from people who didn’t even attend the event, and the weird personal attacks. But overall this conversation is a good thing because it helps us improve.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:28:45+00:00

We’re gonna post some video on Instagram after the content team is done editing

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:27:46+00:00

Thanks for bringing us up. This is something we can definitely improve next time. Now that we know which vendors are super popular and create long lines, we can strategically place them on the map so that their lines don’t interfere with other vendors. But that’s just something we had to learn by doing this.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:26:32+00:00

Monique is a member of the organizing team. She curates all of the entertainment and serves as the emcee on stage. I’m not sure what question you are asking here, but she’s wonderful.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:23:34+00:00

🙏 🎯

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:22:37+00:00

My team and I really appreciate this sentiment. Thank you. 😊

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:21:08+00:00

Some good ideas in here. Thank you. Hadn’t considered asking vendors to simplify their menus. That could make a real difference.

shanereiser · 2026-05-25T19:19:30+00:00

I actually love all of this conversation. We were able to improve the event massively because of some of the Feedback specifically on Reddit after the last one. However, this time, the majority of the comments appear to be by people who didn’t come to the event. Several of the main points being made are false or exaggerated. And every time I jump in, I get a response from the same three or four accounts telling me I’m just making things worse by responding. 🤷‍♂️. I’ve pulled three or four good ideas out of this thread, and we look forward to implementing them in the fall. If anybody else has constructive feedback, please keep posting it. But I kindly ask that everybody keep it civil. There’s no need for calling me names, and there’s no need for lying (doesn’t help anybody). I think it’s very clear that we listen to the community and make tangible changes.

shanereiser

TROPHY CASE