On the evening of August 21, food trucks lined up along Highland Avenue starting at five o'clock. By eight, the trucks were still serving and the movie screen at Piedmont Park lit up with "Flow." Nobody had to choose between dinner and a show. For the first time, the city's brand-new Food Truck Friday and its long-running Movies in the Park series shared the same lawn on the same night.
That pairing is worth pausing on, because it didn't happen the first time either program ran. Food Truck Friday debuted on its own in July. Movies in the Park has existed for years as its own thing. What changed in August is that Piedmont decided its newest habit and its oldest one belonged on the same evening, at least some of the time. The rest of the fall calendar shows the city is still figuring out exactly how often.
A Tradition Two Months Old
Food Truck Friday started on July 17 with no fanfare beyond a City of Piedmont announcement inviting residents to bring a blanket and pick up dinner in the park. The inaugural lineup included Chick-N-Go, Cousins Maine Lobster Truck, Bay Area Halal Eats, Crazy Empanadas, and Kona Ice, with DJ Kev providing music through the evening. It worked well enough that the city added three more dates before the summer was out.
One detail from that first night carried forward: residents asked for an earlier start. The original event ran later into the evening, and by the time the city announced its next three Food Truck Fridays, the start time had moved up to 5 p.m. That's a small adjustment, but it's the kind of thing that only shows up when a city is actually listening to the people who showed up the first time, rather than running a template event and hoping the same crowd returns.
The Night It Merged With the Movie
August 21 was billed by the city itself as Food Truck Friday returning "as partner" to Movies in the Park. Trucks along Highland Avenue served from 5 to 8 p.m. with a different lineup than July's: Golden Gate Gyro, Chick—Go, Shamal Burgers & More, Lola's Spanish Cuisine, Yummi BBQ, Bay Area Halal Eats, and More Liife Ice. "Flow" started at 8 p.m. as the second Food Truck Friday and the first Movie in the Park of the year.
What the schedule shows, once you line up the rest of the fall dates, is that this pairing isn't a fixed format yet. Some Fridays get both programs. Some get only one.
| Friday | What's happening at Piedmont Park |
|---|---|
| July 17 | Food Truck Friday only (inaugural) |
| August 21 | Food Truck Friday + Movie in the Park, "Flow" |
| September 18 | Food Truck Friday only |
| September 25 | Movie in the Park only, "Elio" |
| October 16 | Food Truck Friday + Movie in the Park, "Wonka" |
If you're planning an evening around one or the other, that split matters. Show up on September 18 expecting a movie and you'll get dinner and music instead. Show up September 25 hungry and you'll want to eat before you arrive. The city seems to be testing which nights deserve both draws and which work fine on their own, and this year's calendar reads like a first pass rather than a settled pattern.
A Stage Built From a Quarry
A different kind of tradition runs on a different schedule entirely, a half mile away at Dracena Park. On August 9, the Vallejo Shakespeare Group staged a free performance of "Richard III" in the lower section of the park, at 130 Dracena Avenue, in the quarry area next to the grove of dawn redwoods. Seating was picnic-style on the lawn, dogs were welcome on leash, and the city asked people to walk, bike, or carpool since parking is limited.
The ground itself has a longer story than the play does. That quarry area was once Walter Blair's rock quarry, the source of crushed stone used to pave the dusty streets of both Oakland and Piedmont in the 1800s. What was once an industrial pit supplying road material now hosts an outdoor stage every August, framed by trees instead of machinery.
This year's performance was the fifth time Vallejo Shakespeare has appeared in Piedmont since the group's founding in 2010 by Vallejo resident Dalia Vidor. The lineup of past productions shows a troupe that returns almost every year now, after a gap in the middle:
- Henry V, 2019
- Hamlet, 2023
- The Winter's Tale, 2024
- As You Like It, 2025
- Richard III, 2026
Four years between Henry V and Hamlet, then one every summer since. Whatever the reason for that gap, the current run of consecutive years suggests the quarry has become a fixture on the troupe's summer circuit rather than a one-off stop.
The Exedra Keeps Anchoring Everything
Piedmont Park itself covers roughly 15 acres, and nearly every civic event in town seems to orbit one of its three entrances. The east entrance at 711 Highland Avenue opens onto sloping lawns around the Community Hall, where the food trucks park. A separate entrance off Wildwood Avenue looks out over Witter Field at Piedmont High School with a wide view of the Bay and Mount Tamalpais beyond it. And the formal Exedra entryway, at Highland and Magnolia, marks the geographic center of town with its distinctive blue ceramic vase.
That same Exedra hosted National Night Out on August 4, when the Piedmont Police and Fire Departments set up lawn games and refreshments for two hours so families could meet the people who respond when something goes wrong. It's a different kind of gathering than a food truck night or a Shakespeare afternoon, but it happens on the same patch of grass, organized by the same recreation calendar that opened fall program registration for residents that same week.
None of this requires learning a new part of town. The newest ideas the city tries out tend to land on ground that's already doing something else most weeks of the year.
Planning Around It
If you're weighing a Friday night at Piedmont Park this fall, the practical takeaway is to check which program is running before you leave the house, since not every Food Truck Friday comes with a movie and not every movie comes with food trucks. If you're headed to Dracena Park for anything involving the quarry area, plan to walk or carpool, since street parking near 130 Dracena Avenue fills up fast on event days, and bring a blanket or low chair since seating is lawn-only.
Piedmont's public calendar got busier this year, but it didn't get more spread out. The trucks, the movie screen, the Shakespeare troupe, and the police department's community night all use the same handful of acres the city has always had. What's new is how often those acres get used, and how the newest habit found its footing by moving in next to the oldest one rather than staking out ground of its own.
If you've been in Piedmont long enough to remember when Movies in the Park was the only thing on the summer calendar, this is worth watching. And if any of this has you thinking about what your own next chapter here looks like, whether that's more space for a family that's outgrown the house or a smaller footprint closer to the park, Spencer Mills is glad to talk through it with you, no pressure, just a clear plan for whenever you're ready.
