By JAN McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Sure, they come for the cultural pleasures of art and music. But the Black Swamp Arts Festival satisfies another, more primal desire for many patrons.
It’s the annual pilgrimage to the beef tips food truck, where the hungry wait in long lines for a mountain of mashed potatoes, topped with savory sirloin, and sauteed onions and mushrooms.
The South Bend, Indiana, family behind JNK Sirloin Tips has been serving up dinner on the road for 36 years.
Kim Colglazier (the K in the food truck name) said she has a soft spot for the Black Swamp Arts Festival.
“This is our favorite” of all the festivals and fairs they travel to, she said. “It’s the vibe. The people are so nice.”
Colglazier and her son, Nate (the N in the food truck name), have a staff of seven other cooks and servers who crank out sirloin tips with toppings from 11 a.m. to well past dark. The small orders weigh in at about one pound, while the large are nearly double that.
“It’s a lot of beef,” she said, as she took a break behind the food truck Friday evening.
When pressed for information of the addictive nature of the sirloin tips, Colglazier was coy.
“I can’t tell you the secret,” she said with a smile.
“People love it,” she said, adding that some Black Swamp Arts Festival patrons confess to feasting on the meat and potatoes multiple times over the three-day fest.
“Sometimes they come every day,” Colglazier said.
The festival food selection offers patrons a wide variety to choose from – Lake Erie perch, Thai chicken, Greek gyros, Mexican tamales and much more. But it’s the sirloin tips that seems to draw the biggest lines.
Dan Cota, of Bowling Green, expressed relief that the beef tips vendor likes the Bowling Green festival – ensuring the food truck’s continuing presence at the annual festival.
“I average four a festival. It’s so good,” Cota said, of the beef tip dinners.
The long lines do not discourage him. “It looks a lot worse than it is. They are very efficient,” he said.
Jason Sisco, another regular customer of JNK Sirloin Tips, set his stop watch when he got in the end of the line down by the port-a-johns Friday evening.
“Usually it goes pretty quick,” he said. This year, the wait was 17 minutes … but in all honesty, Sisco would have likely waited far longer if necessary.
“It’s the only place I know to get these,” he said.
As she waited to place her order, Chelsea Cloeter explained her devotion to the steak tips conveniently located at one entrance to the food truck area by the festival’s main stage. The aroma from the simmering meat hits patrons as they get near.
“It is just so delicious,” Cloeter said. “I don’t eat a lot of meat, but I eat this. It hits the spot.”
Gary Saunders said he and wife, Mary Jane, wait all year long for the festival delicacy.
“They’re tender and just plain delicious,” he said. “And being in the middle of the festival with music doesn’t hurt.”
A few years ago, the Saunders had Covid and couldn’t attend the festival. Friends at the festival asked if they could bring them anything.
“We told them we wanted beef tips,” Mary Jane said. As their friends picked up the order, they told the food truck staff that the food was for their friends stuck at home with Covid.
“The man behind the counter said, ‘Well, in that case, it’s on the house,’” Mary Jane recalled.
