More than 30 food trucks packed up Fountain Walk on Sunday as the fifth annual Novi Taco Fest wrapped its three-day run, capping a weekend that also featured live entertainment and local art vendors spread across the open-air shopping center. Vendors spent the final hours of the festival serving up their take on the taco before the crowds thinned out and the tents came down.
Novi Taco Fest was held at Fountain Walk, the Twelve Mile Crossing shopping center that has hosted the event since it began, and this year's edition featured tacos from more than 30 different food trucks, according to ClickOnDetroit. The station spoke with Israel Quintero, who owns the La Finca food truck, about what sets his operation apart from the rest of the lineup as vendors readied for the festival's closing stretch. Quintero has built out his food business well beyond a single truck — he opened a physical restaurant, La Finca Tacos, in Howell in 2024, and he also runs an Asian fusion food truck in the Brighton area, according to WhatNow Detroit.
A Festival That Keeps Growing
The Novi Taco Fest has grown into one of the region's marquee late-summer events since it launched five years ago. Last year's festival drew more than 20,000 people over its three days and hosted 40 metro Detroit food trucks, with roughly 75 percent of them offering their own spin on the taco — from traditional meats to barbecue and dessert versions, per C & G Newspapers. Promotional materials for this year's event note that Novi Taco Fest was ranked the fourth-best taco festival in the country in 2025, per listings from Twelve Mile Crossing at Fountain Walk.
Beyond the food trucks, the festival has built a reputation around its cultural programming. Past years have featured performances by Novi's own Ballet Folklorico Mexico Lindo, mariachi bands, Lucha Libre wrestling matches, a hot pepper eating contest, a taco eating contest and a cutest dog contest, the same C & G Newspapers report notes. Attendees have also been able to cast votes for a People's Choice Award by scanning QR codes at each truck, last year's title went to Los 2 Primos, operated by cousins Chris and Sergio Arreola, who also run the La Tiendita storefront in Westland.
Behind the Scenes of a Mobile Food Fest
Running a fleet of food trucks across a multi-day festival like this one involves more regulatory groundwork than most attendees realize. Under the Michigan Food Law, trucks traveling between multi-day events typically need a Special Transitory Food Unit license, which allows statewide operation without requiring a return to a fixed commissary kitchen every day, according to a guide from VendorLoop. That's different from a standard Mobile Food Establishment license, which requires trucks to return to a home base within 24 hours, STFU units instead must carry their own potable water and waste systems on board.
Labor rules have also shifted for vendors this year. Michigan's expanded Earned Sick Time Act took effect October 1, 2025, and now applies to all food truck operations statewide, requiring owners to provide paid sick leave even to temporary seasonal staff brought on for summer festival runs, VendorLoop reports.
Why Fountain Walk Can Host It All
None of the festival's open-air food and drink setup would be possible without a city decision made years before the first taco truck ever rolled in. The Novi City Council designated Fountain Walk as an official Social District in August 2022, a move that lets festival attendees legally walk and consume alcoholic beverages outdoors throughout the common areas of the shopping center, according to city records. That designation, aimed at supporting local restaurants and improving foot traffic during outdoor community events, has helped turn Fountain Walk into a natural home for a festival that keeps expanding its footprint each year.
Ticketing records list Art As Healing Foundation, Inc. as the nonprofit organizing entity behind the festival, coordinating vendor logistics, stage scheduling and ticket sales for the multi-day event, per MainGate Tickets. For vendors like Quintero and the Arreola cousins, a weekend like this one offers both a high-volume sales opportunity and a marketing showcase that can send new customers toward their brick-and-mortar storefronts long after the trucks pull out of Fountain Walk for the season.
