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The Grilled Cheese Invitational is the crowing jewel event in Los Angeles during National Grilled Cheese Month. A massive crowd of hot-cheese between grilled bread enthusiasts descended upon Los Angeles State Historic Park Saturday to see the top grillers in action and to sample their offerings as part of the 1st ever 7th annual gathering. Although the line was long the enthusiasm was high, as was the innovation of ingredients--sammies packed with Peeps, gourmet flavor combos, a giant deer made of sandwiches. Those who bucked the odds and arrived later in the day found themselves out of luck when it came to getting a hold of sandwich and beer tickets (although the Kraft samples were plentiful).
Two LAist photogs, imjeffro of the LAist Featured Photos pool and Michael Ngim, were among the grilled cheese eaters and have these photos to share from the event.
Blogger gas•tron•o•my has a great detailed write up of the event, and looks at the entrants in the event's four naughtily-named categories:
* The Missionary Position: Standard bread, standard cheese (or cheeses), standard butter and NO ADDITIONAL INGREDIENTS.
* The Kama Sutra - vegetarian: Any kind of bread, any kind of butter, and any kind of cheese PLUS additional ingredients (the interior ingredients must be at least 60% cheese).
* The Kama Sutra - non-vegetarian: Any kind of bread, any kind of butter, and any kind of cheese PLUS additional ingredients (the interior ingredients must be at least 60% cheese).
* The Honey Pot: Any kind of bread, any kind of butter, and any kind of cheese (the interior ingredients of the sammich must be at least 60% cheese), and with an overall flavor that is sweet and would best be served as dessert.
Did you get to the Grilled Cheese Invitational? What was your favorite?
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The whole thing SUCKED - got there at like 1:35 and there people who had been in line since 12PM and still not even close to getting in.... someone needs to work with the organizers and fix it... had to take hungry kids elsewhere... and everywhere was full with people who left the grilled cheeses thing.
I was not surprised at how packed it was, but I had wishful thinking and came out with zero entering my stomach. Mix a great idea with tons of press coverage from every possible outlet and it was a recipe for huge crowds, some of them who left disappointed to find popular Chinatown restaurants like Yang Chow completely packed with said Grilled Cheese revelers.
I second that. I got there at 1pm, waited in line for 2 hours, then paid $5 for a quarter of a Kraft singles grilled cheese sandwich. Total bust.
Sell judging tickets/admission online ahead of time next year.
Showed up at 5pm after the competition was pretty much over. Got in for free and was able to sample 5-6 dessert sammiches and saw a portion of the award ceremony. The tiramisu grilled cheese was amazing! I'd say for paying nothing, I got one heck of a better deal than those who arrived early.
Preview
I got there about 11:30 and the line was already past the fenced area and starting to wrap around the grassy knoll towards the parking lot.
I totally enjoyed it! Lots of great people, some very creative variations on a grilled cheese, and cool costumes. I was never asked for a ticket, though I did stuff plenty of the different entries down, and dutifully filled out all the attached ballots.
This def an event I'll look forward to next year. By the time I left the line to get in was already out the park entrance.
I don't know about you Meagan and icharry, but I'm gonna get there around 11:00 next year!
I'm sorry that the organizers still haven't gotten their act together. Two years ago they advertised like crazy and promised to publish the Top Secret location on their website a few hours before the event. We waited like idiots for two hours, refreshing the website every few minutes, no address. I finally emailed the organizers and got this response... TWO DAYS later.
"Thanks for your interest in the Grilled Cheese Invitational. Due to overwhelming publicity, we were forced to not publish the address on our website because we had already reached capacity for the event location before we even posted the address.
We apologize for not living up to our word, but it was entirely necessary.
Thanks for your interest in the event and we will let you know where and when we will do the next one.
Yours in the science of bread butter and cheese,
Cap'n Shady
Chief Instigator
Grilled Cheese Invitational"
They didn't even have the decency to post a quick note saying as much on the night. It still makes me mad.
It still makes you mad two years later?
As much as I can separate myself from the event itself, I have to say it's much like any popular event blown out by press coverage. Lines, frustrated people, and much complaining after the fact by those who felt shafted. I'm happy to hear that of the folks who got in, most left satisfied and happy--that means the only problem is too many attendees. Considering they'd never done anything of this scale before, I'm sure the organizers will have new ways to streamline things next year.
and who IS that local green-haired blogger with the cheese deer? Gracious, I have no idea. ;)
Yea? izzat you?
Hey I figured there'd be a crowd. If it's any consolation to those of you who slept in, I only spent about an hour there. I left to ease the crowding and give all you folks standing in line a chance to cheeze out. The smell of burning butter and cheese must have been driving you all nuts!
I've been attending for the past few years and missed this one due to work... Two years ago was actually one of the best, since the secret location kept the numbers low and the crowd fun... It was in an art complex downtown and you could actually SEE the competition (which I heard was near impossible this year...) And there was a certain self aware silliness to a bunch of adults meeting to indulge in grilled cheese sandwiches...
At the risk of sounding like an anti-establishment snob, it's gotten too big for its own good and something tells me the humor behind the "Missionary Position" and "The Kama Sutra" categories is lost on a crowd of families...
RIP the GCI...
i went
got there around 11:30
waited about 1:00 when they let people in
i will admit it could use a lot of organization
hard to see what was even going on or what you wanted to try
the ticket for judging a grilled cheese system didnt stand up too well...but most runners didnt ask for tickets..esp at the end of the competition for the dessert catagory..people were just handing them out left and right
i know some people came super early ...the ones in the front of the line had been there since 9 am ! which explains why the crowds were nearly gone by the last category
but it was generally a really fun event and a great way to spend a saturday drinking beer and eating grilled cheese
well shit, i'm glad i didn't even bother to go
i arrived at about 1:00 and the line looped around the grassy hill and back past the entrance gate plus another 100' toward the metro station. But you know, the line moved fast, the weather was *perfect* and everyone around was friendly. The GCI ushers kept us fairly entertained while we shuffled toward the entrance (they were like rodeo clowns to the impatient cheese-hungry bulls). I was still in line when they announced that all the judges' tickets were claimed, and that the price was lowered to $2.50. As I approached the gate at about 2pm the line had shrunk behind me and was barely to the corner of the fence. It amazed us that newcomers were still walking up, scoping out the length of the line and deciding to screw it and just walk away. Granted, I didn't have the ticking timebomb of hungry kids to worry about but in all seriousness I've waited on line longer for KogiBBQ and it costs more and isn't nearly as much fun as the GCI.
It was my 1st GCI and I was impressed. Sure, it's controlled chaos, but damn sure that's what it's meant to be. Things i liked:
GCI staff were friendly and accessible.
Volunteer opportunities for local high school kids. (yay recommendation letters!)
Just the right amount of sponsorship, tempered by plenty of whimsy
While I'm generally allergic to event MCs I found the GCI MCs hilarious
The poets were brilliant
Concessions proceeds were donated to a great charitable cause
Location (beautiful, clean (corn-free) park, downtown, 100yrds from Metro station)
The event culled cheese sammie lovers from all over LA
All the participants showed a pretty intense outpouring of creativity and originality without any regard for personal profit; we don't get to experience that as often we should.
PS Cheese Sammiches
I went last year, and based on what I saw, declined to go this year. It would have and could have been awesome, but its really poorly organized. Hundreds and hundreds of people fighting for a tiny portion (1 inch by 1 inch) scrap of sandwich. Last year, after a couple hours of being there, I managed to down 3 sandwich scraps. This year, I can only imagine it was worse. Sorry to be so negative about it, but they need to rethink admission and layout. It really could be a great event. People were all really nice though.
I have to second, (or third or fourth) the other experiences here. This was more like the Festival of Standing in Lines. An hour and a half to get in - then, once I'd made it in, before I even had a chance to wait in the line for judging tickets, the announcement came - all judging tickets were gone.
Well hell, I thought, at least I can get a free sandwich from the Kraft booth. After 15 minutes in that line, I received my quarter of a sandwich.
Then my friends and I stood around in the line to get into the beer garden for a while, until we realized none of us wanted a beer badly enough that we were willing to stand in one line just to get into another line to buy the damn beer.
So, frankly, after about 2 and a half hours I was tired, sunburned, and starving. ("Come hungry," said the ad.) The line for the free quarter-of-a-sandwich was even longer than it had been when I first made it in, so... I gave up. Thankfully, there was no line for the Metro (though I bet there was later in the day.)
I'd been looking forward to this for *months*. What a shame.
I, and I bet most people, would have happily paid 10 bucks for a better organized event with a pre-sale limited to, say, half the people who came this time. Just a suggestion.