New casual community gathering spot debuts in Springfield.
By Delaney Akridge and Fabrizio Gowdy
If you’ve recently driven through Springfield on a Saturday night, you may have noticed a lively scene at the corner of 4th and North Main streets. The setting is the new Main Street Food Park, a community gathering place for live music, food trucks and a variety of events.
Main Street Food Park is the vision of Cherron Johnson, a nurse in the Navy Reserves, and Hector Zayas, Sr., a retired Navy vet. Hector moved to Springfield in 2016 and quickly fell in love with its close-knit feel, and it wasn’t long before girlfriend Cherron came to share his admiration. The couple married, built their home together on Laura Street, and bought a food truck, eventually purchasing an empty lot on the corner of 4th and Main, a property which they had been eyeing for two years.
Since opening in October 2021, the space has hosted a number of events including live jazz performances, game nights, and a Harvest Jamboree fundraiser. With a rotating schedule of food trucks parked here, daily offerings range from grilled tacos to tikka masala. The newest addition to the park is a long-awaited food service building where guests can order beer, wine, pressed sandwiches, and more. In addition to their weekend soirées, the park also has a big screen where football fans can have Sunday brunch while the Jaguars play.
A short block away is Sesquicentennial Park where a number of holiday events are held. The evening of November 25, Music on Main stages a Christmas Cantata, a tree lighting ceremony and holiday market with local vendors. Then, on December 13, another Springfield tradition returns—a nighttime bicycle ride and parade. The route covers the majority of the neighborhood and gives riders the perfect vantage point to enjoy the lights and sights of the season. The parade gets rolling at 6 PM.
Good Afternoon, Vietnam
Tucked away in an almost hidden shopping plaza near the intersection of Beach and Kernan boulevards, A Bit of Saigon owner and chef Alex Nguyen has mastered the magnum opus of Vietnamese cuisine: Pho bo. Considered to be the signature of Vietnamese cuisine, pho bo combines the salty, sweet and spicy flavors associated with each of Vietnam’s three regions. The country’s official dish, this savory soup pairs slices of salty beef with a slightly sweet, translucent broth.
The origin story of the dish is a bit of a mystery, though it’s generally understood to have been inspired by the French one-pot stew, pot du feu, which is phonetically similar to pho. Chef Nguyen says the genesis of many traditional dishes are the result of France colonizing the Southeast Asian country in the 19th Century.
Banh Xeo is a crispy turmeric crepe stuffed with bean sprouts, mushrooms, shrimp and pork. It melds the traditional French pancake with the meats and spices present in the Indochinese region. France also introduced coffee to Vietnam in the mid-1800s and the country has since become one of the world’s largest coffee producers, second behind Brazil.
At A Bit of Saigon (3503 Kernan Blvd.), Ca Phe is made using traditional methods—brewed coffee is sweetened with condensed milk and served over ice. For dessert, chef Nguyen makes his own creme brûlée, another nod to French culinary influences.
